Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

PRIVATE BILL PETITIONS [Lords] (Standing Orders not complied with),

Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the Petition for the following Bill, originating in the Lords, the Standing Orders have not been complied with, namely:

West Somerset Mineral Railway (Abandonment) [Lords].

Report referred to the Select Committee on Standing Orders.

PRIVATE BILLS [Lords] (Petition for additional Provision) (Standing Orders not complied with),

Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the Petition for additional Provision in the following Bill, originating in the Lords, the Standing Orders have not been complied with, namely:

River Wear Watch Bill [Lords].

Report referred to the Select Committee on Standing Orders.

Wallasey Embankment Bill,

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

LACE TRADE, NOTTINGHAM.

Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: I have the honour to present a petition signed by 17,000 employers and workpeople engaged in and dependent upon the lace and embroidery trades carried on in the city of Nottingham and surrounding districts, praying this House to give these trades the benefit of the Safeguarding of Industries Act, and by so doing
relieve the intense distress which your petitioners have hitherto borne with patience and fortitude.

CIVIL CONTINGENCIES FUND, 1921–22.

Copy ordered "of Accounts of the Civil Contingencies Fund, 1921–22, showing (1) the receipts and payments in connection with the Fund in the year ended the 31st day of March, 1922; (2) the distribution of the capital of the Fund at the commencement and close of the year; together with copy of the correspondence with the Comptroller and Auditor-General thereon. "—[Major Boyd-Carpenter.]

STREET ACCIDENTS CAUSED BY VEHICLES.

Address for "Return showing the number of accidents resulting in death or personal injury known by the police to have been caused by vehicles in streets, roads, or public places in Great Britain during the year ended the 31st day of December, 1922 (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 60, of Session 1922)."— [Mr. G. Locker-Lampson.]

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL INDUSTRY.

COKE.

Mr. HARDIE: 2.
asked the President of the Board of Trade what number of blast furnaces are in danger of damping down through shortage of coke; if he is taking steps to prevent the ever-increasing price of coke; and if he will state the selling price of coke in October last and at the end of February last?

The SECRETARY for MINES (Lieut-Colonel Lane-Fox): I am not aware that any blast furraces in this country are in danger of damping down through shortage of coke. The average prices of metallurgical coke last October and at the end of February were 26s. and 37s. 6d.
respectively at ovens for home requirements, and 29s. and 70s. respectively, f.o.b., for export. I am satisfied that coke manufacturers are making every effort to supply inland needs at reasonable prices.

Mr. HARDIE: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman not aware that the furnaces in the districts of Lanarkshire which have not their own coking ovens are to-day suffering from the fact that they cannot get coke, or, when they do get it, it is at a price which puts them outside any contract that may arise?

Lieut.-Colonel LANE-FOX: I am not aware that there is any danger of their damping down.

Mr. HARDIE: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman take steps to inform himself that there is that danger?

COAL (TRANSPORT CHARGES).

Dr. CHAPPLE: 53.
asked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been drawn to the estimated saving of £10,000,000 per annum to the railway companies due to the reduction in the price of the coal consumed in railway traffic; and whether he contemplates any legislation calculated to relieve the coal industry of its crushing burden of freight cost to an extent commensurate with the reduction in the price of coal?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of TRANSPORT (Colonel Ashley): I have been asked to reply. In regard to the first part of the question, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I am to-day giving to the Noble Lord the Member for Nottingham South. As to the second part, I would remind the hon. Member that, under Sections 60 and 78 of the Railways Act, 1921, coal trade organisations and other bodies of traders may apply to the Railway Rates Tribunal for reduction of railway charges, and the tribunal may make such modification as they deem just. I see no reason to propose amending legislation.

Mr. LAWSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, even with the very limited conditions of inquiry into the cost of the distribution of coal, it was agreed that both the producers and the consumers suffer considerably owing to the cost of distribution? Do not the
hon. Gentleman and the Prime Minister think that it is time there was a full inquiry into the cost of distribution in the coal industry, with a view to doing justice to the consumer?

Colonel ASHLEY: The remedy is in the hands of the miners' organisation. If they will apply to the Railway Rates Tribunal and put their case they will surely get some reduction if their case is as strong as the hon. Member represents.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNEMPLOYMENT.

PAPER MILLS.

Mr. BECKER: 4.
asked the President of the Board of Trade how many paper-mills are shut down in England and Scotland through foreign competition, and how many men are unemployed from this cause?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. Betterton): I have been asked to reply. I regret that I have no information as to the number of paper mills shut down at the present time. Among the 61,000 workpeople insured against unemployment in the paper-making and staining trades, the total number registered as unemployed at 26th February was 4,528 or 7.4 per cent. It is not possible to say in how many of these cases the lack of employment was due to foreign competition.

POOR RELIEF, SCOTLAND.

Mr. DUNCAN MILLAR: 37.
asked the Under-Secretary to the Scottish Board of Health if he can state the amount expended in the provision of poor relief to destitute able-bodied persons out of employment in Scotland under the Poor Law Emergency Provisions (Scotland) Act, 1921, and the amount borrowed by parish councils in Scotland for that purpose on the security of the assessments?

Captain ELLIOT (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of Health, Scotland): The amount expended in Scotland up to 3rd instant in the provision of poor relief to destitute able-bodied persons out of employment was approximately £1,933,000. The amount borrowed by parish councils for that purpose on the security of the assessments is £1,573,600.

Mr. MILLAR: Is it intended to continue this form of relief?

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must give notice of that question.

SALE OF BREAD BILL.

Mr. ROBERT MORRISON: 6.
asked the President of the Board of Trade if he is now able to state the date on which the Sale of Bread Bill will be introduced; and whether he will arrange for the provisions of the Bill to be applicable to Scotland?

The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Sir Philip Lloyd-Greame): I am unable at present to make any statement on this matter. The present Sale of Food Order remains in force, however, until next December.

SHIPS' CREWS (QUARTERS).

Mr. SHINWELL: 7.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that his predecessor, in reply to a deputation of representatives of seafarers which approached him last year on the subject of crews' quarters, promised to inspect certain vessels personally; and whether he proposes to undertake this task himself in view of the change in office and in pursuance of the promise then made?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: Yes, Sir; I am aware of the promise made by my predecessor, and I hope to inspect some ships as soon as I can find the necessary time.

Oral Answers to Questions — PEACE TREATIES.

ANGLO-GERMAN ARBITRAL TRIBUNAL.

Sir JOHN BUTCHER: 9.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he can state how many cases have up to the present time been disposed of by the Anglo-German mixed arbitral tribunal and how many cases are still waiting to be disposed of; whether he will take steps to accelerate the hearing of these outstanding cases; and whether it is possible to set up a second tribunal to help in dealing with them?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: The number of cases lodged with the Tribunal from the date of its establishment down to the 15th instant was 1775. During the same
period the Tribunal made 97 awards and 215 cases were withdrawn or settled by agreement, leaving 1,463 to be dealt with. I understand that the Tribunal has under consideration certain steps which it is hoped will accelerate the hearing of outstanding cases, and I am in communication with the Treasury as to the establishment of an additional division of the Tribunal.

Sir J. BUTCHER: In view of the very large number of cases and the importance to the persons concerned of getting a decision will the right hon. Gentleman take every step in his power to accelerate these hearings?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: Yes, Sir; I am satisfied that if it be possible to get another section of the Tribunal established that shall be done, and I shall do everything in my power to help that.

EASTERN GALICIA.

Sir JOHN SIMON: 50.
asked the Prime Minister whether the Ambassadors' Conference has come to a decision as to the future status of Eastern Galicia; if so, what is that decision; whether the decision is provisional or final; if it is provisional in what respect it is so, whether in regard to duration, to acceptance by the people affected, or to ratification by the Powers; and whether an opportunity will be given to the House for discussion before the decision is finally ratified?

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Bonar Law): The Ambassadors' Conference have reached a decision as to the future status of East Galicia the text of which will be published shortly. This decision, which assigns Eastern Galicia to Poland subject to certain conditions, is final and was reached with the approval of His Majesty's Government and of the other Governments represented at the Conference. The subject could, I think, be raised on the Consolidated Fund Bill.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Does not the fact that the Treaty of Versailles was laid before this House entitle this House also to pronounce on a decision arising out of it?

The PRIME MINISTER: Not at all.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Is it understood that we have any responsibility for guaranteeing this new frontier for Poland.

Sir H. BRITTAIN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are over 500,000 British citizens of Ukrainian stock in the Dominion of Canada, where there is great dismay at the decision, and is he aware that these people are looking to this country to protect the interests of of their nationals in Europe?

The PRIME MINISTER: I am aware of that, but the decision has been taken after all these facts have been taken into consideration.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: May I press for an answer to my first question, and may I ask whether any definite instructions on this point were sent to His Majesty's representative in Paris at the Ambassadors' Conference?

The PRIME MINISTER: Yes, our representative carried out the instructions of the Government which were given to him. As regards our responsibility, it is the same as regards other parts of the Treaty of Versailles.

Sir J. SIMON: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House, or inform the House in some way, what are the conditions subject to which the decision has been arrived at?

The PRIME MINISTER: The conditions are that Poland, which has been in occupation of the country for three or four years, has recognised that the ethnographical conditions make autonomy necessary in that region.

Mr. WALLHEAD: Have the principles of self-determination been applied in connection with this question, and have the people there had a chance of determining on which side they should go?

UNITED STATES ARMY (RHINE).

Captain W. BENN: 77.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether any decision has yet been come to concerning the American Army on the Rhine?

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEOUER (Mr. Baldwin): The answer is in the negative. Negotiations are still proceeding in Paris.

GAS INDUSTRY.

Mr. F. GRAY: 10.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether it is proposed to initiate legislation as a result of the recent Report of the Departmental Committee affecting the gas industry of this country?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: I am in communication with the representatives of the gas industry in regard to the recommendations of the Committee, and I hope it may be possible to give effect to the Report without legislation.

MECHANICAL TRANSPORT (GOVERNMENT WAR SURPLUS).

Captain Viscount CURZON: 12.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he can state the number of war-surplus Army lorries brought into this country during the last four years, and how many were of foreign manufacture; whether the number and value of all such lorries were included in the Board of Trade returns as imports; and whether lorries entering through ports in possession of Government Departments were included in the returns?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: I am informed that, in the case of British Army lorries returned from abroad to this country, whether after sale abroad to private persons or as Army stores, such lorries were excluded from the official record of imports, and I am, therefore, unable to give the number of lorries so returned to this country. Lorries of foreign manufacture, disposed of by the military authorities of other countries, and subsequently shipped to this country, have been included in the official record of motor vehicles imported. But it would not be possible to furnish a separate statement of their number and value.

Viscount CURZON: 72.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the 605 surplus motor lorries, sold at home by the Disposal Board since April, 1922, included 462 Thornycroft lorries, which had been lying at Cologne and were sold by the Disposal Board to the Slough Lorries Disposal Company, Limited, about October last; whether the price realised by the Disposal Board for the sale of these lorries was, approximately, £70 per lorry or less; whether the Slough
Lorries Disposal Company was formed immediately before this sale with a share capital of only £1,000, of which £460 was paid up; whether the Disposal Board ever offered the lorries to the original manufacturers on the same terms; and, if not, why the Disposal Board preferred to sell to a new company with a paid-up capital of £460?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Major Boyd-Carpenter): The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. The 462 Thornycroft lorries were not sold to the Slough Lorries Disposal Company, Limited, and therefore the third and fifth parts of the question do not arise. With regard to the second part of the question, it is not considered desirable in the public interest to furnish information as to prices realised, and as to the fourth part of the question, the manufacturers of the lorries were given full opportunity of tendering, and, in fact, tendered a lower sum than that accepted.

Sir F. BANBURY: Why does the hon. Gentleman not consider it advisable to give information as to the prices realised? Have not the Slough company, by agreement, to return to the taxpayer a certain portion of the profits made on their purchase of these lorries, and if we do not know the prices realised, how can we know whether or not any of the profits has been returned?

Major BOYD-CARPENTER: I think the right hon. Gentleman will see that it is more a subject for debate whether it is in the public interest to give the information suggested. As to the right hon. Gentleman's second point, I will make inquiries.

Viscount CURZON: 73.
asked the Chan cellor of the Exchequer whether the amount of £60,000 payable to the Government by the Slough Trading Company, Limited, under the profit-sharing clause in the agreement for the sale of the War surplus mechanical transport, was payable in respect of the gross sales by the company of mechanical vehicles in excess of £5,000,000, and, if it was not payable in respect of gross sales, what deductions were made from the gross sales in calculating the amount of £60,000; whether the Government have a share in the profits
of the sale of spare parts and supplies which were valued in July, 1918, at £6,750,000, or is the profit-sharing arrangement confined to vehicles sold by the company; whether the Government have received any sum previously under the profit-sharing arrangement; and what further sums will become due to the Government under it?

Major BOYD-CARPENTER: The amount payable to the Government under the profit-sharing clause of the contract is calculated on the gross realisations from the sale of the mechanical transport vehicles. The profit-sharing arrangement is confined to vehicles sold to the company. No payment has been received under the profit-sharing arrangement, but payment of the sum due to date is expected in a few days. I regret that it is not at present possible to forecast what amount will become due to the Government in respect of profit-sharing on future sales.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY.

ROYAL MILITARY ACADEMY, WOOLWICH.

Lieut.-Colonel POWNALL: 13.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether any decision has been arrived at with regard to the suggestion that the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, should be moved to the Royal Military College, Sandhurst?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Lieut.-Colonel Guinness): The answer is in the negative. The matter is before Lord Haldane's Committee on the entry and early training of officers.

Lieut.-Colonel POWNALL: Can the hon. and gallant Gentleman say when the decision is expected, as a somewhat similar reply was given to me as far back as last July?

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: I have no information on that point.

FIELD AND GARRISON ARTILLERY.

Lieut.-Colonel POWNALL: 14.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether it is intended to amalgamate the Royal Field and Royal Garrison Artillery?

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: The proposal is now under consideration, but
questions of considerable diversity and difficulty are concerned, which necessitate study before a definite decision can be arrived at.

BOYS (FURLOUGH TRAVELLING EXPENSES).

Mr. BRIANT: 16.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for War if free vouchers for railway journeys can be supplied to boys serving in the Army and stationed a considerable distance from their homes, so that whilst on furlough such a home visit may be possible; and if he is aware that the pay and ration allowance for 26 days' leave to a boy stationed at Edinburgh only amounts to £3 8s. 8d., and that if his home is in London the fare is £3 16s. 4d.?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Gwynne): It is regretted that free vouchers for these boys cannot be sanctioned. The boys are eligible for the existing concessions granted by the railway, i.e., a return ticket at the cost of a single fare plus one-third. With regard to the last part of the question, the pay and ration allowance come to £3 9s. 4d. and the fare is £3 5s. 4d.

CADET SCHOOL, BLANDFORD.

Mr. EMLYN-JONES: 17.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for War when it is intended to proceed with the erection of the building required for the proposed new school for cadets in Blandford; and whether he will make such arrangements as will ensure, so far as possible, the employment of labour from Blandford and district upon the said buildings?

Mr. GWYNNE: This work will, I hope, be started early in the new financial year. In regard to the latter part of the question, it would not be desirable to make the employment of local labour a condition of contract, but I am aware of the economic and other advantages of such labour, and they will be borne in mind, and I may add it is the policy of the War Office to impress upon contractors the desirability of employing local labour as far as possible.

INSTITUTES AND CANTEENS, ALDERSHOT (WOMEN).

Mr. HAYDAY: 20.
asked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether it is
the intention to continue to employ women on pin-money wages in the regimental institutes and canteens at Aldershot, and as superintendents and travelling inspectors?

Mr. GWYNNE: The wages of women employed in regimental institutes and canteens are not paid from public funds or fixed by the War Office. I have no information to show that they are other than fair wages. If the hon. Member has any such information, and will communicate it to me, I shall be happy to consider it.

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Will the hon. Gentleman impress upon those responsible for the canteens the desirability of employing ex-service men, instead of women?

Mr. GWYNNE: That recommendation has been urged by the War Office since the time the right hon. Gentleman was in office.

FRESH MEAT (CONTRACTS).

The MAROUESS of TITCHFIELD: 21.
asked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether an undertaking was recently given that tenders would be accepted for the supply of fresh meat in Army contracts; and, if so, can he explain why tenders for the supply of meat at Devizes and Trowbridge for the period 1st April to 30th June are confined to frozen meat?

Mr. GWYNNE: An undertaking was given by my predecessor on 9th January last, after the current contracts to 30th June were entered into, that, on their expiration, offers for fresh as well as frozen meat would be invited, and this will be given effect to in the contracts for the second half of the present year. It is regretted that it was overlooked that at a few stations, among which are included Trowbridge and Devizes, where the consumption is comparatively trifling, the current contracts expired on 31st March, and at some of these stations fresh contracts have been entered into on the existing basis up to 30th June without tenders for fresh meat being invited. Instructions have now been issued that alternative offers for fresh and frozen meat are in all future cases to be obtained at home stations.

ANTI-AIRCRAFT DEFENCE.

Major RUGGLES-BRISE: 19.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the limited number of aircraft to be maintained in this country for the purpose of repelling aerial invasion, he can state what steps, if any, are being taken by means of experiment and training in the creation of a second line of defence to air attack by means of anti-aircraft guns, searchlights, or any other means?

Lieut. - Colonel GUINNESS: One Regular and two Territorial Air Defence brigades are in course of formation. Training and experiment are dealt with by the School of Anti-Aircraft Defence and the Searchlight Experimental Establishment, both of which are located at Biggin Hill, Kent. The question of anti-aircraft defence is under consideration by a joint War Office and Air Ministry Committee.

Viscount CURZON: Does not the hon. and gallant Gentleman think that the money spent on this unit would be much better put into the Air Force?

Captain WEDGWOOD BENN: Does not the hon. Gentleman think that his own Department should come under the control of the Air Ministry?

SS. "BRITISH TRADE."

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: 8.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether the Government look with favour on the proposed round-the-world voyage of the ss. "British Trade," with showrooms and samples of British goods, and now fitting out at Hull; if so, will he let this be known officially to the organisers; if he is aware that no Government money is asked for or expected, but that manufacturers and merchants are hesitating to participate in the venture until they have assurances of Government approval; and if this approval cannot be expressed, will he state the reasons?

Lieut.-Colonel BUCKLEY (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department): I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the reply which I gave on the 13th March to a similar question addressed to my right hon. Friend, the President of the Board
of Trade, by my hon. Friend the Member for the East Division of Hull.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Yes; but may I ask the hon. and gallant Gentleman, seeing that this answer was absolutely non-committal, whether the Government take any interest at all in this venture, and if so will they inform themselves of it, and see if they can support it—at least morally?

Lieut.-Colonel BUCKLEY: I have nothing to add to the answer which I have given.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: May I press the President of the Board of Trade on this question; is he aware that this venture has been entered into by a number of ex-officers, and that it is paid for—

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND.

ILLEGAL TRAWLING.

Major WARING: 23.
asked the Under-Secretary to the Scottish Board of Health whether he is aware that at night in the Firth of Forth there are frequently a dozen trawlers working the inshore spawning grounds, and that the offenders are boats held on the instalment system from the Fishery Board for Scotland; and whether he will take steps to alter the system of subsidising illegal fishing?

Captain ELLIOT: My Noble Friend is satisfied by the information which he has obtained from the Fishery Board that, owing to the close patrol which is maintained in the area referred to, illegal trawling on the scale suggested is quite out of the question. The law will be enforced, where necessary, against vessels which are being purchased from the Fishery Board on the instalment system, in the same way as in the case of any other vessels.

Mr. MACPHERSON: Is not the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that illegal trawling is taking place all round the coast of Scotland, and will he see to it that an inquiry, as was promised, is instituted at once?

Captain ELLIOT: I have myself inquired into this particular case, and I am satisfied that there is no foundation for the allegation that illegal trawling
is taking place on this scale. As a matter of fact, on the night in regard to which the accusation was made, the cruiser "Brenda" was lying with covered lights in that area, and reported that no such trawling had taken place at all, and on inquiry it was found that a fisherman had said he had heard it from a pilot, but when the pilot was asked he said he had not given any such information.

Major WARING: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that this illegal trawling goes on continuously, and will he himself visit the district, so that he may see it going on with his own eyes?

Mr. MACPHERSON: Can the hon. and gallant Gentleman tell us now whether the Secretary for Scotland is going to have an inquiry into this illegal trawling which is taking place all round Scotland?

Captain ELLIOT: Obviously, if it should be true that illegal trawling was taking place on the scale alleged, it would be possible to bring specific instances before this House, instead of general allegations such as we have heard this afternoon, and if such specific cases are brought forward, my Noble Friend will be most delighted to look into them.

Mr. MACPHERSON: Can I have an answer to my question as to whether the Secretary for Scotland will have an inquiry into the illegal trawling which is taking place?

Mr. SPEAKER: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will put that question down. The present question applies only to one specific case.

CONVICTIONS, GLASGOW.

Mr. BUCHANAN: 26.
asked the Under-Secretary to the Scottish Board of Health how many persons below the age of 18 years were convicted of any offence in Glasgow during the year 1922; how many were sentenced to terms of imprisonment; how many were sent to institutions of any kind for detainment; and how many have been placed on probation?

Captain ELLIOT: Information with regard to persons below the age of 18 is not available, but in Glasgow in 1922, 2,404 persons under 16, and 5.853 persons between 16 and 21, were convicted of offences. 78 persons under 16 were sent to reformatory or industrial
schools, and 26 persons between 16 and 21 were sent to Borstal institutions. 214 persons under 16, and 176 persons between 16 and 21, were placed on probation. Considerable research would be necessary to ascertain how many persons of these ages were sentenced to imprisonment, but the total number of persons of all ages who were sentenced in Glasgow in 1922 to be imprisoned was 1,504.

Mr. BUCHANAN: 27.
asked the Under Secretary to the Scottish Board of Health how many persons during the past two years in Glasgow have been placed on probation; and how may have again been convicted of a crime during that period?

Captain ELLIOT: The information for the year 1922 is not yet available. In 1920, 850 persons were placed on probation in Glasgow, and of these none were dealt with for fresh offences during the period of probation. In 1921, the number of persons placed on probation in Glasgow was 792, of whom six were dealt with for fresh offences during the period of probation.

PRISONERS, GLASGOW (COST).

Mr. BUCHANAN: 28.
asked the Under-Secretary to the Scottish Board of Health the cost per week of keeping a prisoner in any one of His Majesty's prisons in Glasgow?

Captain ELLIOT: In 1922 the cost per week of keeping a prisoner in Barlinnie Prison was £1 0s. 1d., and in Duke Street Prison £1 5s. 6d.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Is that merely the cost of food, or does it include expenses of administration in addition?

Captain ELLIOT: It is the answer to the question which the hon. Member put on the Paper. If he requires a differential statement, I shall be glad if he will give me notice of it.

EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN BILL.

Mr. W. GRAHAM: 29.
asked the Under-Secretary to the Scottish Board of Health whether the Government intend to reintroduce the Employment of Children Act (1903) Amendment (Scotland) Bill, as amended and approved in last Parliament by the Scottish Grand Committee; and whether, in view of the fact that this is an agreed Measure, early facilities will be given?

Captain ELLIOT: There is no much prospect of time being found for the Bill in question at present, and in the circumstances its early introduction is not contemplated. If, however, an assurance were forthcoming that the Bill would be treated as an agreed Measure, my Noble Friend would be prepared to consider the matter further.

SMALL HOLDINGS, LINLITHGOW.

Mr. SHINWELL: 30.
asked the Under-Secretary to the Scottish Board of Health whether he is aware that the ex-service men smallholders at Linlithgow are experiencing much difficulty owing to the lack of water facilities on their holdings; that they deny entering into a contract with his Department regarding the spreading of road metal on the roads in the vicinity, but merely agreed to patch certain parts in their spare time; and whether he will personally investigate their complaints or cause further inquiries to be made?

Captain ELLIOT: My Noble Friend is informed that there is a shortage of water only when the windmill pump fails to function in continued calm weather. The Board of Agriculture are willing to provide means to overcome this difficulty if the holders will undertake maintenance and management. He is not aware of the reason why the men at present decline to cart and spread road metal supplied free by the Board, but he is informed that they originally gave a verbal undertaking to do so where required, and that a supply of metal was so dealt with in 1921. Further inquiries are being made by the Board into the complaints.

Mr. SHINWELL: Is it desirable, in the interests of these ex-service men who are now located on these small holdings, to impose further burdens in the way indicated by the Department? Is it not desirable that these men should be relieved of such burdens, in order that they may make a comfortable living on these small holdings?

Captain ELLIOT: I would point out to the hon. Member that the arrangement as to the supply of road metal was defined in 1921, and that it is, therefore, not an additional burden.

DETENTION IN ASYLUM.

Mr. SHINWELL: 31.
asked the Under-Secretary to the Scottish Board of
Health under whose instructions Mr. George Ramage, of Bo'ness, was sent to an asylum; and whether, seeing that this man was only detained a few weeks and that he was not insane, but merely suffering from the effects of insomnia, and that Mr. Ramage has suffered financially since his release owing to the difficulty of obtaining employment because of the stigma arising from his detention, he will cause further inquiries to be made?

Captain ELLIOT: Mr. Ramage was removed to an asylum at the instance of the inspector of poor under the provisions of the Lunacy Acts, and his subsequent detention was duly authorised by order of the Sheriff. The procedure throughout appears to have been regular. I should be glad to go into the matter further with my hon. Friend, but I think he will agree that it is inadvisbale, if it can be avoided, to discuss medical cases on the Floor of the House.

Mr. SHINWELL: Am I to understand from that answer that the hon. and gallant Gentleman is prepared to go into the allegations made by this man and into the question of compensation for wrongful detention in an asylum?

Captain ELLIOT: I am prepared to go into the question of detention, but compensation is a different question and I can give no undertaking on the matter just now. It comes under certain legal conditions which cannot be dispensed with.

Mr. SHINWELL: In the event of it being proved that wrongful detention took place, will the hon. and gallant Gentleman consider the question of compensation?

FISHING (RIVER NITH).

Dr. CHAPPLE: 33.
asked the Under-Secretary to the Scottish Board of Health whether any representations have been made to him regarding the progressive depreciation of fishing in the River Nith in Dumfriesshire; and whether he proposes to take any action in the interest of Scottish fisheries similar to that taken by his English colleagues in the interest of fisheries in England?

Captain ELLIOT: The reply to the first part of the question is in the negative. My Noble Friend is aware, how-
ever, that there are complaints of serious pollution of the Nith and information regarding such pollution is at present being collected by the Fishery Board and the Board of Health.

Dr. CHAPPLE: Is the Department taking any steps to make itself acquainted with the facts?

Captain ELLIOT: The reply is contained in the latter part of the question. W are obtaining information on the subject at present.

VENEREAL DISEASE.

Mr. WHEATLEY: 34.
asked the Under-Secretary to the Scottish Board of Health what is the total amount allocated in grants to Scottish local authorities for the treatment of venereal disease in the last six months of 1922; what is the amount of grants allocated to the same authorities for child-welfare schemes in the same period; what was the total expenditure of the Glasgow Corporation on venereal disease treatment for the last six months of 1922; and the amount expended on child welfare?

Captain ELLIOT: I regret that I cannot give the information in the precise form asked for. As regards the first two parts of the question, the Board's estimate for 1922–23 provides for grant amounting to £65,000 in respect of treatment of venereal disease and £120,000 in respect of maternity service and child welfare schemes. As regards the third and fourth parts of the question, I am informed that the Corporation of Glasgow state that their expenditure in the six months ended 30th November last was £15,955 on venereal disease treatment and £18,215 on child welfare.

Mr. WHEATLEY: Does the hon. and gallant Gentleman think the victims of a disease contracted through the folly of the diseased person are morally entitled to the same consideration from the State as the innocent victims of poverty, and if he does not, will he see that distribution by the State of grants is made in a way which will enable the innocent victims to obtain better treatment?

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member can discuss that on the Estimates.

AGRICULTURAL WAGES.

Mr. MILLAR: 36.
asked the Under-Secretary to the Scottish Board of Health whether, in view of the heavy drop in the wages of agricultural workers in Scotland during the past year, and the absence of any satisfactory machinery for the adjustment of a fair minimum wage, he is prepared to introduce legislation on the subject?

Captain ELLIOT: I would remind the hon. and learned Member that the Farm Servants' Union have stated that they do not desire any action to be taken by the Board of Agriculture in connection with the provisions of Section 4 (1) of the Corn Production Acts (Repeal) Act, 1921. My Noble Friend is not prepared to introduce further legislation on the subject.

Mr. MILLAR: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that extreme hardship has been suffered by many agricultural labourers in Scotland, and that they have not equal bargaining power with the employer in the matter of wages?

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is arguing the question.

HERRINGS (EXPORT TO RUSSIA).

Major Sir ARCHIBALD SINCLAIR: 39.
asked the Under-Secretary to the Scottish Board of Health whether he can confirm the information contained in a Press communiqué, issued by the Fishery Board for Scotland, that 250,000 barrels of British-cured herrings are to be purchased through Arcos by the Bolshevist Government in Russia; if so, if he is aware what price will be paid for the herrings; and what length of credit will be required?

Captain ELLIOT: The information contained in the communiqué was obtained from the British Commercial Mission at Moscow through the Department of Overseas Trade. No information is available as regards the last two parts of the question.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman have inquiries made in regard to the last two parts?

Captain ELLIOT: Inquiries are properly a matter for those who have these
herrings to dispose of. It is not a matter for a Government Department but for those engaged in the trade.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING.

LOCAL AUTHORITIES (STATE ASSISTANCE).

Mr. TREVELYAN THOMSON: 48.
asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the serious delay caused in house building by the failure of the Government to introduce their Housing Bill, he will make known before the Recess the terms on which they propose State assistance shall be given to local authorities in the future, so that they may at once proceed with their schemes?

The MINISTER of HEALTH (Mr. Neville Chamberlain): I have been asked to reply. The result of my negotiations with representatives of local authorities is an agreement for subsidy of £6 per house per annum for 20 years for an A III house. Legislation enabling the grant to be made will be introduced as soon as possible after the Easter Recess, and, in the meantime, a local authority proceeding to build with my authority would in due course participate in the proposed grant. There is therefore no reason for delay in proceeding with their schemes.

Mr. CLYNES: Does the right hon. Gentleman consider that any legislation will be necessary to prevent an artificial increase in prices as a result of the policy decided upon?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I hope not, but that is a matter that will have to be very carefully watched.

Mr. THOMSON: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman, with all respect, in view of the alterations which have taken place in the past in his Department in regard to policy, whether the policy he has announced is the settled policy of the Government, so that local authorities may go ahead without any risk of there being alterations by subsequent Government decision?

Mr. SHINWELL: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the claim of Scotland to an additional subsidy, having regard to the peculiar difficulties of building there?

Mr. H. H. SPENCER: Does the right hon. Gentleman remember that the Prime Minister on Friday said, in answer to the agricultural deputation, that agriculture, like every other industry, must be self-supporting?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: In reply to the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. T. Thomson) I may say that it is, of course, the settled policy of the Government or I should not have announced it. The question as to what is to be done in regard to Scotland is still under consideration.

Mr. WALLHEAD: Will there be any variation, up or down, in regard to the £6 subsidy per house?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: No, it is a flat rate.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: Does the answer given by the right hon. Gentleman to the question of the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. T. Thomson) imply that schemes undertaken by local authorities will receive the £6 per head subsidy, even if building was started prior to the right hon. Gentleman taking office.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: No, Sir. That is not what I said. I said that if they now proceed to build houses with my authority, they will rank for the subsidy, provided, of course, that the Housing Bill is carried.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Does the right hon. Gentleman not see that—

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member had better put down a question.

PRIVATE BUILDERS' SUBSIDIES (SCOTLAND).

Mr. T. JOHNSTON: 24.
asked the Under-Secretary to the Scottish Board of Health, if he is aware that the grant of £15,000,000 provided for subsidies to private builders under the Housing (Additional Powers) Act, 1919, was allocated in the Goschen proportions, which means eleven-eightieths to Scotland; if under this allocation there is still £750,000 due to Scotland; and in what form this sum will be paid?

Captain ELLIOT: I am aware that the amount originally provided for subsidies to private builders was apportioned on the Goschen basis. This amount, however, was the maximum against which
claims might be made in respect of houses completed within the prescribed time limit. The amount was not fully exhausted in either Scotland or England —though the scheme was taken up to a proportionately greater extent in England. There can be no question, therefore, of a balance being due to Scotland, but, as stated in the reply which was given to the hon. Member on the 6th instant on behalf of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the situation under the private builders' subsidy was taken into account in fixing the limit to the number of houses to be built in Scotland under the local authorities housing schemes.

Mr. JOHNSTON: Is the substance of that reply that Scotland has not got its eleven-eightieths of that sum?

Captain ELLIOT: That is the substance of the reply.

Mr. JOHNSTON: Are we not legally entitled to get it?

Captain ELLIOT: No, Sir.

Mr. SPEAKER: Mr. Wheatley.

Mr. SCRYMGEOUR: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman say why we cannot get that proportion?

Captain ELLIOT: I do not know if I should be in order in going back after another hon. Member has been called, but, if that hon. Member will excuse my going back, I would say that that, of course, refers to sums due to Scotland under the municipal housing schemes.

SHOPS, GLASGOW.

Mr. WHEATLEY: 25.
asked the Under-Secretary to the Scottish Board of Health, if he is aware that syndicates have been formed in Glasgow for the purpose of buying up blocks of shops in which shopkeepers have built up valuable businesses, and then intimating to each shopkeeper on the expiry of his lease that he must purchase his shop at a price far beyond its former value or give up possession of it, thus leaving him with the alternative of sacrificing the goodwill of his business of handing over a sum equal, perhaps, to more than half the value of the goodwill to the speculator in property; and whether he will consider bringing shops within the scope of the new Rents Restrictions Bill which the Government are expected to introduce at an early date?

Captain ELLIOT: I have no information as to the circumstances referred to in the first part of the question. As regards the latter part, it is not proposed to bring shops within the scope of the Bill.

Mr. WHEATLEY: In the event of my being able to furnish the hon. and gallant Gentleman with information as to the acuracy of the statement made here, will he consider the protection of these men from landlordism, as he proposes to protect tenants in dwelling houses?

Captain ELLIOT: If the hon. Member can also furnish me with information showing that none of these shopkeepers raised their prices from pre-War during the period since the declaration of War in 1914, I shall be very glad to consider it.

Mr. HARDIE: Is not the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that this block of buildings, from the entrance to the Caledonian Railway in Union Street, terminating at the entrance in Gordon Street, was recently bought by a syndicate, and that fabulous prices have been asked for these buildings?

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is giving the information.

RURAL AREAS, SCOTLAND.

Mr. MILLAR: 35.
asked the Under-Secretary to the Scottish Board of Health how far the recommendations of the Royal Housing Commission, Scotland, relating to housing in rural areas have been carried into effect; and what steps, if any, have been taken to secure the provision of proper and sanitary housing accommodation for farm workers?

Captain ELLIOT: I am unable to state to what extent local authorities and private individuals have given effect to the recommendations of the Commission in regard to rural housing, including accommodation for farm workers. So far as action by the State is concerned, provision was made in the Housing and Town Planning, etc. (Scotland), Act, 1919, to increase the powers of local authorities in regard, for example, to the provision of water supply and sanitary conveniences, the repair of defective houses and the control over the erection of new houses. The provisions of the Act empowering local authorities to grant loans to owners for the improve-
merit of existing houses and requirng them to prepare housing schemes applied to the authorities of county as well as of urban areas. A number of houses has also been provided for farm workers under the private builders subsidy-scheme.

Mr. MILLAR: Is the Department, as recommended by the Royal Commission, going to undertake a complete survey of cottages in Scotland and see that steps are taken by the health officers to see that they are kept in a proper state?

Captain ELLIOT: Local authorities have been given very extensive powers. There are some 31 recommendations by the Royal Commission on Housing which we have put into effect so far as we have been able to do so.

Mr. MILLAR: Has a survey of these cottages as yet been completed?

Captain ELLIOT: I am unable to answer that question without notice.

NAVY, ARMY, AND AIR FORCE INSTITUTES.

Mr. R. RICHARDSON: 22.
asked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether he is aware that the new wing of the Aldershot depot of the Navy, Army, and Air Force Institute is only partially occupied with equipment and local produce; and whether it is intended that this building, which cost much money to erect three years ago, should become derelict?

Mr. GWYNNE: No, Sir; I have no information on this subject. The building was not erected out of public money; and the use to which it is put is a matter for the Board of Management of the Institutes, in which I am afraid I cannot intervene.

EMPIRE SETTLEMENT.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir J. NORTON-GRIFFITHS: 40.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, seeing that the provision in the Estimates for 1923–24, namely, £1,206,200, does not represent the full amount allowed under the Empire Settlement Act, his Department is withholding grants on grounds of
economy or because the organisation is not yet sufficiently developed for more money to be used?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Ormsby-Gore): The amount provided in the Estimates for 1923–24 represents the anticipated expenditure at the time the Estimates were drawn up in respect of schemes under the Empire Settlement Act which have already been agreed upon or are likely to mature during the financial year. Should additional expenditure become necessary, further provision will be made by means of a Supplementary Estimate. The hon. Member is, of course, aware that the expenditure of His Majesty's Government under the Act cannot exceed the amount which the Dominion Governments and other organisations are prepared to contribute.

Sir J. NORTON-GRIFFITHS: When does the hon. Gentleman hope to reach the £3,000,000 limit which was voted by the House?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: When the equivalent amount is put up by the overseas Governments.

Sir J. NORTON-GRIFFITHS: 41.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies what sums have been appropriated in the Budgets of the various overseas Dominions for use in connection with overseas settlement during the coming financial year?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: The Dominion Budgets for the coming financial year are not yet available.

Sir J. NORTON-GRIFFITHS: 42.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies what was the net emigration from this country of British subjects to the Crown Colonies and Protectorates during 1913 and 1922, respectively?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: I have been asked to reply. As nearly as can be ascertained the net emigration from the United Kingdom to the Crown Colonies (exclusive of Ceylon) in 1913 was 1,461. For 1922 there was an excess of immigrants over emigrants of 231. Ceylon is excluded because the figures have hot been compiled separately from those for India.

Mr. WHEATLEY: Would it be possible for the hon. Gentleman to take any steps which would tend to ensure that the British capital exported during the same period would go to the British emigrants to establish them in their new homes?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: That hardly arises out of the question.

"DOMINIONS" AND "COLONIES."

Major Viscount SANDON: 43.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his Department have made any official communication to the Board of Education as to the distinctive use of the expressions, Dominions and Colonies, with a view to the elimination of the use of the word Colonies in schools throughout the United Kingdom in other than its accurate sense; and, if not, whether they will consider the advisability of doing so at once?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative; as to the second, I will bring the Noble Lord's suggestion to the notice of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Education.

PALESTINE (ADVANCES).

Mr. BECKER: 44.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if he has any information to the effect that large sums of money have been raised by the Palestine Government on the security of a loan which has not yet been authorised, but which is contemplated in the event of the British Parliament ratifying the agreement to take over the Palestine Mandate?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: The Government of Palestine have, with the authority of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, received advances amounting in all to £1,365,000 from the Crown Agents for the Colonies on the understanding that the advances will be repaid when a Palestine loan is floated. This procedure is in accordance with the usual Colonial Office practice when it is found necessary to finance expenditure in anticipation of the issue of a loan. With regard to the last part of the question, there is no question of any further ratification of the Palestine Mandate by Parliament, the Mandate
having been accepted by His Majesty in April, 1920, and the terms of the Mandate having been approved by the Council of the League of Nations in July last.

Sir J. BUTCHER: Is there any immediate chance of this loan being issued?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I think so.

IMPERIAL ECONOMIC CONFERENCE.

Mr. JARRETT: 45 and 46.
asked the Prime Minister (1) whether representatives of the Crown Colonies have been invited to attend the forthcoming Imperial Economic Conference;
(2) whether opportunity will be given to Parliament to consider in advance the agenda for the forthcoming Imperial Economic Conference; and whether suggestions for such agenda will be accepted from others than members of His Majesty's Imperial and Dominion Governments?

The PRIME MINISTER: I hope that the list of subjects to be included in the agenda for the Imperial Economic Conference will be settled, in consultation with the Governments of the Dominions and India, in time to allow of their being announced, and considered by the interests concerned in the various parts of the Empire, before the Conference meets.
The President of the Board of Trade has already intimated on behalf of His Majesty's Government that when the arrangements for the Conference have been definitely settled, it is his intention to take steps to consult the representatives of commerce and industry in this country.
It is contemplated that the Conference should include representation of the Colonies and Protectorates, but the form of representation has not yet been settled.

Sir J. NORTON-GRIFFITHS: Is the right hon. Gentleman in a position to indicate the date when the Conference will be held?

The PRIME MINISTER: I am not able to name a date; but we are in communication with the Dominion Governments and India.

Captain BENN: The Prime Minister said that consultations were going on with
the representatives of commerce and industry. Can he say what precautions are being taken to see that the interests of the consumer are also watched?

LOCAL TAXATION.

Sir WALTER de FRECE: 47.
asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the resolutions now being passed by public authorities all over the country in favour of a comprehensive inquiry into the incidence of local taxation, he will consider the desirability of taking steps to meet what is a very general desire?

The PRIME MINISTER: The whole subject of local taxation is, as stated in the King's Speech, under consideration, but I am not at present able to make any further statement upon it.

Mr., MARDY JONES: 49.
asked the Prime Minister whether the Government proposes to introduce a Rating Bill during the present Session; and, if so, will he extend the scope of the Bill so as to make mining royalties and ground rents liable to local rates?

The PRIME MINISTER: I am not at present in a. position to make any statement as to the introduction of the proposed Bill or as to its contents.

TURKEY.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 51.
asked the Prime Minister whether he can report any developments in the situation between this country and Turkey; and what steps he proposes to make peace and avoid hostilities between England and Turkey?

The PRIME MINISTER: The Turkish counter proposals are to be examined by the Allied experts whose first meeting takes place in London to-morrow. It would be premature to make any further statement on this matter at present.

RUHR DISTRICT (BRITISH TRADE).

Captain BENN: 52.
asked the Prime Minister whether he can now state the result of the representations made by the Government as to the position of British
traders in the Rhineland; in particular, whether the suggestion of the British Chamber of Commerce in Cologne has been adopted; and whether he can give an assurance that effective action has been taken to relieve British traders from the difficulties and losses under which they are at present labouring?

The PRIME MINISTER: His Majesty's Government continue in constant communication with the French and Belgian Governments. While those Governments have not as yet accepted the suggestion of the Cologne Chamber of Commerce, I am confident that so far as the French and Belgian Governments are concerned, arrangements for dealing with the difficulties of British traders, as satisfactory as possible in what is admittedly an abnormal situation, are being made.

Captain BENN: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what was the reply to the inquiry made by the Foreign Office last week in consequence of my question?

The PRIME MINISTER: Yes. We have been in constant communication with the French and Belgian Governments, and with our representative on the Rhine, and I am sure, from those communications, that everything possible is being done.

Captain BENN: Can the right hon. Gentleman state a specific case in which the position of the British trader, who is doubly taxed and harassed, has been improved?

The PRIME MINISTER: Yes. In many cases where contracts have been entered into, they are taking all steps to make conditions as easy as possible.

GERMAN CREDIT BALANCES.

Mr. A. M. SAMUEL: 54.
asked he Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the German balances held in the United Kingdom exceed 100 millions sterling or 150 millions sterling for the whole British Empire; and whether he has information showing that the total aggregate of German credit balances held abroad in all countries exceeds 200 millions sterling?

Mr. BALDWIN: His Majesty's Government have no information which would enable them to criticise these estimates.

Mr. SAMUEL: Does the right hon. Gentleman not think it reasonable to ask the bankers what the figures are, so that we may have some accurate information?

Mr. BALDWIN: It is extremely difficult to get even an approximate figure.

STATE ANNUITIES.

Mr. T. JOHNSTON: 57.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give the names of the persons who receive annuities included in the lump sums of £18,000. and £23,666 13s. 4d. referred to in the Finance Accounts for the year ending 31st March, 1922; and the sums paid to each such individual annually?

Mr. BALDWIN: As is stated in the Finance Accounts, the sums in question are paid under the 1 Edward VII, C. 4, and 10 Edward VII, 1 Geo. V, C. 28, respectively to the trustees appointed therein for the benefit of the daughters of his late Majesty King Edward VII and His present Majesty's younger children. The Trustees are required by the Acts to hold the sums paid to them in trust for all or any one or more of the beneficiaries in such shares, at such times, in such manner and subject to such conditions as His present Majesty by order, countersigned by the two first-named trustees, may appoint.

Mr. JOHNSTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the question on the
paper?

Mr. BALDWIN: I think that the answer does answer the question. The Act of Parliament sets aside the specific sum. Parliament, by that Act, waived any right to make further inquiries into the allocation of the total sum, and deliberately provided that the apportionment should be left to His Majesty's discretion.

Mr. JOHNSTON: Supposing that members of this particular family die, does the total sum remain to be paid to the remaining members of this family?

Mr. BALDWIN: No. If the hon. Member will look at the Act, he will see that those cases are provided for.

CABINET SECRETARIAT.

Mr. FOOT: 58.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what persons, if any, are
now employed in the Cabinet Secretariat; and what duties such persons perform respectively?

Major BOYD - CARPENTER: One secretary, one principal assistant secretary, one assistant secretary, one temporary administrative assistant, one accountant, one shorthand-writer and a clerical staff of 22 are at present employed in the Cabinet Secretariat. This staff will be reduced by six (one accountant and five clerks) on 31st March, 1923. The secretary records the decisions reached by the Cabinet and undertakes all other secretarial duties of the Cabinet. Together with his assistants, he also provides the secretarial staff for a number of Standing and ad hoc Committees of both the Committee of Imperial Defence and the Cabinet. The distribution and custody of all Cabinet, Committee of Imperial Defence and Sub-Committee papers and archives, and the clerical service of the office, is also carried out by this staff.

Mr. HARDIE: If they are dismissed, will they have all the benefits of emigration, of which we hear so much talk from the other side of the House?

Mr. LAMBERT: Is it a fact that these officials who have gone from the Cabinet Secretariat have been simply transferred to other Government offices?

Major BOYD-CARPENTER: No; that is not correct.

Lieut.-Colonel FREMANTLE: How many of the 24 charwomen are dealt with?

CIVIL SERVICE (PENSIONS).

Mr. CAIRNS: 59.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the number of ex-civil servants in receipt of pensions, giving average age at retirement, average pension paid, the lowest pension and the highest pension per annum paid at date, and the total annual cost; the number of persons in the Civil Service in receipt of full salaries or wages who arc also in receipt of pensions from the Government, giving average amount and average age; and the number of Members of Parliament in the present House of Commons who are in receipt of pensions from the Government, because of military, naval, civil services, and as ex-Cabinet Ministers, showing the totals of each kind separately?

Major BOYD - CARPENTER: The number of persons in receipt of Civil Service pensions last autumn was 30,670. Pensions are awarded upon retirement at the age of 60 or upwards or at earlier ages in cases of ill-health or abolition of office, but I am not in a position to state the average age of existing pensioners at retirement. The average pension paid is approximately £135. The highest is £2,000 per annum; the lowest (for short service followed by service pensioned from other funds) is believed to be 10s. 5d. per annum. The total annual cost is about £4,200,000. Complete information as to the number of persons employed in the Civil Service who are also in receipt of pensions could not be supplied without undue clerical labour, but the hon. Member will find particulars as regards individual cases in the footnotes to the various Estimates. The information asked for by the hon. Member in the final part of the question is being collected, and will, when available, be circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. CAIRNS: Will the hon. Gentleman reply to the portion of the question about ex-Cabinet Ministers?

Major BOYD-CARPENTER: I cannot say without information whether they are included in this.

Mr. CLYNES: Do any of these civil servants suffer reductions in pensions as in the case of old age pensioners because of their small private income?

Mr. CAIRNS: Will the hon. Gentleman reply to the last part of my question?

Mr. SPEAKER: I understood the hon Member to say that he would circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. CLYNES: Will the hon. Gentleman answer my question?

Mr. SPEAKER: It seems to me to be an argumentative question, and perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will put it down.

BRITISH MUSEUM (FEES).

Sir J. BUTCHER: 60.
asked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that, by the Statute of 1753, under which the British Museum was established and constituted, it was provided
that the museum and the collections therein contained should remain and be preserved for public use to all posterity, and should be vested in trustees upon this trust and confidence that a free access to the museum and the collections therein contained should be given to all studious and curious persons under such regulations for inspecting and consulting these collections as the trustees or a majority of them should determine; whether there is any precedent for overriding a trust of this character, created for the benefit of the public, and for depriving the public of their statutory right to free access to the museum in order to obtain a small pecuniary gain for the Treasury; and whether the trustees of the British Museum have expressed any desire to be permitted to violate their trust?

Major BOYD - CARPENTER: The general purport of the Act of 1753 is as stated. There can be no question that Parliament has full power to amend by Statute, if it thinks fit, the provisions of any existing Statute and the conditions of public trusts. As regards the last part of the question, the trustees, having protested against the imposition of fees in April, 1922, and again in February, 1923, finally gave the Treasury an undertaking that they "agreed … to impose admission fees if legislation is passed for the purpose, and they are asked by the Treasury to do so," and in return for this assurance the Treasury abated by £5,000 their demand for economies in 1923–24. If the anticipated receipts are not secured, it is possible that the question of expenditure may have to be reconsidered, the net total of the British Museum Vote having risen from £202,508 in 1913–14 to £350,055 in 1921–22, and standing in the Estimates for 1923–24 at £291,816 (excluding the fees now in question).

Sir J. BUTCHER: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman answer the second part of the question as to whether there is any precedent for overriding a trust of this kind created for the benefit of the public, and depriving the public of their statutory rights of free access to museums in order to gain a small pecuniary benefit?

Major BOYD-CARPENTER: That is a rather argumentative question, but my answer is contained in my reply that Parliament has full power to amend the provisions of any existing Statute and the conditions of public trusts.

Sir J. SIMON: Does the hon. Gentle-maw think it an answer to the question whether there is any precedent to say that it is open to Parliament to do it?

Major BOYD-CARPENTER: Surely the idea of Parliament is to create precedents.

Sir H. BRITTAIN: In any case, is not the amount received from fees miserably small? What is the amount?

PUBLIC ASSISTANCE, PENSIONS AND INSURANCE.

Sir W. de FRECE: 61.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he can state the aggregate annual amount per head of the population which is now distributed by State in uncovenanted unemployment relief, Poor Law relief, old age pensions, service and kindred pensions, and insurance payments, either health or insurance, respectively?

Mr. BALDWIN: As the answer contains a number of figures, I will, with my hon. Friend's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

The amount per head of population distributed in 1922–23 in Great Britain on the services stated are estimated to have been approximately as follows:

s.
d.


Unemployment Benefit
19
6


Poor Law Relief
21
0


Old Age Pensions
10
0


Service and kindred Pensions (including the pensions of school teachers and police)
13
6


War Pensions
30
0


Health Insurance Benefits
11
0

The figures include not only money provided from taxes and rates but also, in the case of the health and unemployment insurance schemes, contributions by employers and employed. Separate figures are not available for un-covenanted unemployment benefit.

BRITISH DEBT (UNITED STATES).

Sir W. DAVISON: 62.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in order to set at rest differences of opinion which
have arisen, he will give full particulars of our various loans from America; whether the British Government suggested to the Government of the United States at the time when America came into the War that the United States Government should undertake the financing of the Continental Allied Powers, a task which for the previous 2¾ years had been undertaken by Great Britain; whether the United States declined to assume this responsibility; and whether this refusal necessitated our present indebtedness to the United States?

Mr. BALDWIN: As the reply is rather lengthy, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Sir W. DAVISON: In reference to the last part of the question, is it not a fact that no loan would have been required by us from the United States of America if we had not been obliged to finance the European Allies of both America and ourselves?

Mr. BALDWIN: That question was answered very much more clearly than is possible by question and answer by Earl Balfour the other day in another place.

Following is the answer:

The money was borrowed from the United States Government at frequent intervals to meet our requirements, but no distinction was made between individual advances now included in the funded debt. There are outstanding also advances for the purchase of silver and certain market loans, see my reply to the hon. Member for Belper on the 22nd February. As regards the second part of the question, the United States on entering the War undertook the financing of the Continental Allied Powers as regards expenditure in the United States and made loans direct to those Powers for that purpose. The British Government continued to make advances to the Allies for their expenditure in the British Empire and in neutral countries. Early in 1918 the British Government pressed the United States Government to relieve it of responsibility for financing these requirements of the Allies and offered in return to finance all its own expenditure in the United States without borrowing from the United States Government, but that Government did not accept the proposal.

PUBLIC COMPANIES (GOVERNMENT DIRECTORS).

Mr. GRAHAM WHITE: 63.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will state the names of the companies having Government directors receiving fees both from the Treasury and the company, and the amount of the payments from both sources in each case?

Mr. BALDWIN: In no case does a Government director of a commercial company receive remuneration both from the company and from the Exchequer.

BUDGET.

COMMERCIAL ALCOHOL.

Mr. GRATTAN DOYLE: 64
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what amount of revenue is obtained from the Excise Tax at present levied on commercial alcohol;
(2) Whether he is aware that the Excise Tax on alcohol required for commercial use only is now 72s. 6d. per proof gallon as compared with a tax of 14s. 3d. per proof gallon in 1914; whether he is aware that the actual value of the alcohol is 2s. 6d. per proof gallon; whether he will take steps to remove the burden of a tax of 2,900 per cent. ad valorem which is thus imposed on British manufacturers;
(3) Whether he is aware that British manufacturers using commercial alcohol are subjected to a tax of 2,900 per cent. on the value of a necessary ingredient for the production of certain goods; and whether, in view of the urgent need for encouraging legitimate trade, and so providing more employment in this country, he will take steps to remedy this state of affairs?

Mr. BALDWIN: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge University on the 15th February.

PARLIAMENTARY VOTERS' FEES.

Mr. LORIMER: 67.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will consider making a charge of 1s. per head on each person who exercises the Parliamentary vote, the said fee to be paid when the voter records his vote?

Mr. BALDWIN: It would, in my opinion, be quite impossible to adopt my hon. Friend's suggestion.

Mr. LORIMER: Would not the total fees be welcome to the Exchequer?

Mr. BALDWIN: Anything is welcome to the Exchequer.

Mr. SHINWELL: Could not the right hon. Gentleman comply with the request of the hon. Member and apply this to his own particular case?

Mr. BALDWIN: That would not bring in enough.

CHICORY DUTY.

Mr. SHEPPERSON: 70.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will state the amount of Excise charged upon chicory grown in this country and the Excise charged upon imported chicory; and what was the total revenue received last year both from home-grown and imported chicory?

Mr. BALDWIN: As the answer is in tabular form, I am circulating it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

The following table shows the present rates of duty on chicory and the revenue collected in the year ended 31st March, 1922:

Chicory.
Rates of Duty.
Revenue for year ended 31st March, 1922.


Home Grown:

£


Raw or Kiln dried
£1 1s. 1d.
4,969



per cwt.



Imported:




Raw or Kiln dried
£1 6s. 6d.
85,801



per cwt.


Roasted or ground
4d. per lb.




90,770

Empire-grown chicory is chargeable at five-sixths of the import- rates.

EXCESS PROFITS DUTY AND INCOME TAX (ARREARS).

Mr. PARKINSON: 69.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what amount of money is owing for unpaid Excess Profits Duty, and the amount of money owing to the Treasury for unpaid Income Tax; and whether interest is charged upon such arrears if owing for more than one year?

Mr. BALDWIN: As regards the first part of the question, I would refer the hon. Member to my answer to the hon. Member for Ilford on the 20th February, of which I am sending him a copy. Interest on Excess Profits Duty is charged in accordance with Section 34 of the Finance Act, 1922; no interest is chargeable in respect of Income Tax.

CIDER DUTY.

Mr. SHEPPERSON: 71.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will state the Excise which was charged on each gallon of cider manufactured in England before 1914 and the amount of Excise charged to-day; and what was the total revenue received last year from the Excise on cider?

Mr. BALDWIN: The present Excise duty of 4d. per gallon on cider and perry was first imposed in 1916. The net revenue for the year ended 31st March, 1922, was £90,063.

PROPERTY REVALUATION.

Colonel NEWMAN: 74.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware of the dissatisfaction existing outside the London area by reason of the fact that the recent revaluation of property throughout the country penalises the owners outside the London area whose properties have been assessed on rental values which include the full increases under the Rent Restrictions Acts, as compared with the owners of property in London itself who are liable for tax on valuations which include only the small increases permitted by the Rent Restriction Act, 1919; and if he will take steps so that owners of property within the London area shall be reassessed on a similar basis to those outside that area in order that the anomaly shall be removed, and that the amount which should accrue by way of taxation shall be received from London alike with the rest of the country?

Mr. BALDWIN: As the reply to this question is necessarily somewhat long, I will circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

I do not think that any real ground can be found for the dissatisfaction which is stated by my hon. Friend to exist. In England and Wales, outside the Metropolis, there has been no revaluation of
property for taxation purposes since 1910, with the result that the assessments have, for some time, been gravely out of date. The revaluation now being undertaken will come into force for the year 1923–24. In the Metropolis, however, revaluations were carried through in 1915 and 1920 and, under the provisions of the Valuation (Metropolis) Act. 1869, came into force for taxation purposes for the succeeding years 1916–17 and 1921–22. I am aware that the Metropolitan valuation of 1920 did not reflect the increases of rent sanctioned by the Rent Restrictions Act of 1920, but it has to be remembered that, on the one hand, the Rent Acts up to 1919 inclusive sanctioned increases of rent in certain cases and, on the other hand, that they only governed houses not exceeding £70 annual value in the Metropolis. In these circumstances it is evident that during recent years the balance has been against the Metropolis and this disadvantage may reasonably be set against any balance that there may be in its favour during the three years 1923–24 to 1925–26, after which the next Metropolitan valuation will, in the usual course, come into force for taxation purposes.

MUNICIPAL BANKS.

Mr. WHEATLEY: 68.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in view of the success of the municipal banks in Birmingham, Irvine, and Kirkintilloch, if the Cabinet will consider the advisability of bringing in legislation authorising town and county councils to establish municipal banks, and thereby enable local authorities to obtain credit facilities cheaper than by ordinary borrowing?

Mr. BALDWIN: I do not see any likelihood of legislation on this subject, and I am by no means sure that in any case the extension of such powers would be desirable.

Mr. WHEATLEY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in Glasgow the citizens, through the corporation, borrow a sum of about £12,000,000 a year, that they have approximately an equal sum in the savings bank in the same city, and that on their investments they got 2½ per cent. interest? Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that legislation which would enable them to use their own city's money for civic purposes is desirable?

Mr. BALDWIN: If the hon. Gentleman has studied this question, as no doubt he has, he will know that there is a great deal to be said on both sides, and that it is more than we can discuss by way of question and answer.

IRELAND.

LUGGAGE EXAMINATION IN LONDON.

Colonel NEWMAN: 75.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, to minimise the inconvenience to travelers from the Irish Free State to London after the 1st proximo, the same facilities for the prompt examination of personal luggage will be afforded at Euston and Paddington on the arrival of through trains from Ireland as now exist in the case of travellers arriving at Victoria or Charing Cross from the Continent?

Mr. BALDWIN: At Victoria and Charing Cross, registered baggage from the Continent is examined, but not hand baggage, which is examined at Dover and Folkestone. The same facilities as regards registered baggage from the Free State will be afforded at Euston and Paddington, if there is a demand for them, and adequate arrangements are made by the railway companies.

BOTTLED WINES AND MOTOR-CARS (DUTY).

Colonel NEWMAN: 76.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether old bottled wines which are held in the Irish Free State, and which have already paid duty to the Imperial Exchequer, will be exempt from any further duty if exported from the Free State to Northern Ireland or to Great Britain for consumption; and will he say if a Ford or other foreign motor car, which has already paid import duty, will be similarly exempt should its owner desire to take it outside the Irish Free State?

Mr. BALDWIN: To the first part of the question the answer is in the affirmative, if the wines arrive in Great Britain or Northern Ireland before midnight on 31st March, but in the negative if they arrive thereafter. To the second part of the question the answer is in the same sense, except that touring cars brought to Great Britain or Northern Ireland for a limited period will be exempted from import duty under the triptyque system.

Colonel NEWMAN: That means that after 1st April these wines will have to pay double duty?

Mr. BALDWIN: I am afraid there seems no doubt about that.

EX-MINISTERS' PENSIONS. LORD GEORGE HAMILTON.

Mr. LANSBURY: 78.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been called to the fact that the Bight Honourable Lord George Hamilton, who is in receipt of an ex-Cabinet Minister's pension of £2,000 a year, is a director of the Bank of Australasia, of the Metropolitan District Railway, joint deputy-chairman of the Phoenix Assurance Company, Limited, and deputy-chairman of the Central London Railway; and whether, in these circumstances, he will invite the Noble Lord to make a new statutory declaration as to his means?

Mr. BALDWIN: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. As regards the second part, as explained in a written answer which I am circulating to-day in reply to another question by the hon. Member on this subject [OFFICIAL REPORT, cols. 2364–2365], Lord George Hamilton has asked that payment of his pension may be discontinued as from the 6th of next month.

Mr. LANSBURY: Will the right hon. Gentleman take proceedings to inquire as to the means that have been available for the Noble Lord during the years he has been receiving this pension, such as he would take in the case of an old-age pensioner, and will he prosecute the Noble Lord if he has been getting money under false pretences?

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: (by Private Notice) asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the importance of the question raised in the Motion set down for 8.15 to-night, and the impossibility of the question being fully debated in the two and three-quarter hours available, the Government will give one or two days for a resumed Debate after Easter, so that Members desiring to speak
may have an opportunity of doing so before the House is asked to take a decision upon the Motion?

The PRIME MINISTER: The pressure of Government business makes it impossible to give two days, but, judging by the Order Paper and the number of Amendments put down, it is evident that this subject cannot be properly debated in the time available, and I am willing, therefore, to give one day.

Mr. J. JONES: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the advisablity of transferring the Debate to the country after it is finished here, and we will be willing to meet hon. Members whenever they like?

Mr. PRETYMAN: May I remind the right hon. Gentleman that the Agricultural Committee have asked that a day be given for discussion on the position of agriculture, and that such a Debate is urgently required?

The PRIME MINISTER: I think I made a definite promise of such a day, and I hope to be able to keep the promise.

Mr. N. MACLEAN: When will a day be given for the resumed Debate on tonight's Motion?

The PRIME MINISTER: It cannot be in the first week after our return. I will give notice of it when we resume.

RESTORATION OF ORDER IN IRELAND (AMENDMENT).

Sir KINGSLEY WOOD: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend and limit the duration of the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act, 1920.
I have the support of many Members who are constitutional authorities and are experienced in the law and methods of repressing and punishing crime. All of those who are supporting me on this Bill belong to my own party. The Bill has four main propositions. I do not think I need refer to the terms of the Act, because they are familiar to the House. The first proposal of the Bill provides that in each case where an Order has been made by the Home Secretary it shall be reviewed by the Advisory Committee.
This is by no means a challenge as far as the Home Secretary is concerned, and
I think he will be the first to agree that in a matter which has such serious consequences, it would strengthen his own hands if each case were reviewed, as of right, by the Advisory Committee. As I understand from the statement made yesterday, it is the intention of the present Advisory Committee—as far as the Chairman has announced it—to review these cases, but I think it is only a matter of right that a provision to this effect should be embodied in the Statute, and that each man who happens to be the subject of an order, should have his case brought under the review of the Advisory Committee. The second point is that— also as a matter of right—every man should be able to appear before the Advisory Committee. It is true again that yesterday the Attorney-General said facilities would be given, and everyone was glad to know it. I think that was at the instance of the Chairman of the Committee, but again I think, that in a matter which so gravely affects the liberty of the subject, the accused man should have a right of appearing before the Advisory Committee. The third proposition is that until the Advisory Committee has confirmed the Home Secretary's Order no subject of this country should by any Order of the Home Secretary be compelled to leave the country. One of the far-reaching consequences of an Order such as those made by the Home Secretary recently is that, apart from the fact of the man being deported to Ireland, the man loses his right to apply for a writ of habeas corpus. When the Act of 1920 was brought in, that was never contemplated by the House of Commons. What, in fact, was contemplated, was that if any order was made under the Act, the man should remain, not only under the jurisdiction of the Home Secretary, but under the jurisdiction of the English Courts. I think an unfortunate consequence of the orders now being made, and their results, is that, at any rate at this moment, none of these men are able, if they so desire, to challenge the decision of the Home Secretary as to whether he is acting legally or not.
If these men were retained in this country under arrest pending the decision of the Advisory Committee, they could then, if they so desired and were so advised, apply to an English Judge and
test the validity of the Order. The last proposition is one which, I think, may commend itself to all Members of the House and it is that the Act should be limited in its operation. I do not think anyone desires that the Act should remain on the Statute Book without any period being put to it. The Bill fixes a period of 12 months and if at the end of that time affairs in Ireland warrant the necessity, the Act can be renewed, but anyone who has regard for the liberty of the subject will desire that after this time it should be strictly limited in its operation. I only wish to say in conclusion that no one who is supporting this Bill has, and certainly I have not, any desire to condone crime or encourage lawlessness. The Bill is introduced with a view to preserving if possible—I agree in difficult circumstances—the liberty of the subject. Nor is it, so far as this country is concerned, a proposal condemning the action of the Government. It is strictly limited to the future operation of the Act. I have already stated to the House my own misgivings as to the action of the Government. This Bill does not affect that action, but only affects the future, and if the four propositions which I have outlined, were agreed to by the Government, it would do much to strengthen their hands in the action they are taking. In any event, I hope the House will permit the Bill to be circulated and printed and the suggestions contained in it considered by hon. Members.

Question, "That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend and limit the duration of the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act, 1920," put, and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir Kingsley Wood, Mr. Hawke, Sir Ellis Hume-Williams, Mr. Galbraith. Mr. Lort-Williams, Mr. Cassels, Mr. G. W. H. Jones, Sir Harold Smith, Mr. Morris, and Mr. Greaves-Lord.

RESTORATION OF ORDER IN IRELAND (AMENDMENT) BILL,

to amend and limit the duration of the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act, 1920," presented accordingly, and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 69.]

LEGITIMACY BILL.

Reported, with Amendments, from. Standing Committee C.

Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed.

Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be taken into consideration upon Friday, and to be printed. [Bill 56.]

FEES (INCREASE) BILL.

Reported, with Amendments, from Standing Committee B.

Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed.

Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be taken into consideration To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 57.]

PUBLICATIONS' AND DEBATES' REPORTS.

Ordered, That the Minutes of Evidence taken before the Select Committee on Publications' and Debates' Reports in the First Session of 1922 be referred to the Select Committee on Publications' and Debates' Reports.—(Lieut. -Colonel Archer-Shee.)

LAND NATIONALISATION BILL,

to provide for the nationalisation of land in Great Britain, and the abolition of private property therein," presented by Mr. SNOWDEN; supported by Mr. Cape, Mr. William Graham, Mr. Griffiths, Mr. Hodge, Mr. Thomas Johnston, Mr. Lansbury, Mr. Muir, Mr. Spoor, Mr. Trevelyan Thomson. Mr. Turner, and Mr. Wignall; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 20th April, and to be printed. [Bill 58.]

STANDING COMMITTEES (CHAIRMEN'S PANEL).

Mr. WILLIAM NICHOLSON: reported from the Chairmen's Panel; That they had appointed Mr. J. H. Thomas to act as Chairman of Standing Committee C (in
respect of the Intoxicating Liquor (Sale to Persons under Eighteen) Bill); Mr. Gilbert (in respect of the Bastardy Bill); and Mr. Turton (in respect of the Merchandise Marks Bill).

Report to lie upon the Table.

SELECTION (STANDING
COMMITTEES).

STANDING COMMITTEE C.

Sir SAMUEL ROBERTS reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had added the following Members to Standing Committee C (in respect of the Intoxicating Liquor (Sale to Persons under Eighteen) Bill): Mr. Gates and Sir James Remnant.

STANDING COMMITTEE B.

Sir SAMUEL ROBERTS further reported from the Committee; That they had added the following Member to Standing Committee B: Colonel Lambert Ward.

PRIVATE LEGISLATION PROCEDURE
(SCOTLAND) ACT, 1899.

Sir SAMUEL ROBERTS further reported from the Committee; That, in pursuance of the provisions of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, they had discharged the following Member from the Parliamentary Panel of Members of this House to act as Commissioners: Major Waring; and had appointed in substitution: Sir Murdoch Macdonald.

Reports to lie upon the Table.

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY.

[REPORT, 1ST MARCH.]

MIDDLE EASTERN SERVICES.

Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [7th March],
That this House doth agree with the Committee in the Resolution, ' That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £813,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1923, for sundry Middle Eastern Services under His Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies, including certain Grants-in-Aid.'

Question again proposed.

4.0 P.M.

Mr. PRINGLE: On 7th March this Vote came up somewhat unexpectedly before the House, and on that occasion I wished to offer some general observations upon it, but time did not permit. It is appropriate, however, that before the House agrees to this Vote, the large issues involved in it should be further considered and that the House should have an opportunity of ascertaining what further developments in policy the Government have in view. I desire to remind the House of the very large sum involved in this Vote. In the Question read from the Chair, the House is asked to vote £813,000 for various Middle Eastern Services. Part of that is represented as being necessary for the purposes of defence. That accounts for £350,000 and, secondly, there is a further charge in regard to railways of £153,000, which raises the original Vote for capital expenditure on the Iraq railways from £70,000 to £223,000. In the third place there is a totally new Vote amounting to £310,000 for the maintenance of these same railways. In previous discussions on this Vote there has been a vagueness in Ministerial statements which it is our duty to clear up, not only as regards the details, but also as regards the general policy. The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies in his speech during the Committee stage made some statements regarding the railways, upon which the House will desire further information. I first draw attention to his statement
regarding the value of these railways and their future. He painted a very rosy picture of their future. They are now, he asserts, practically on a paying basis. Indeed, he suggested that in past years they would have been solvent had it not been for the demands of military traffic. He suggests that in the coming year there will be no further change upon the Imperial Exchequer in relation to the railways. The suggestion is that next year the Iraq Government will become entirely responsible for their working, and, being responsible for their working, that any deficiency will fall upon that Government. I am anxious to know on what basis the hon. Gentleman arrives at such a result. Is there any anticipation that the traffic borne by the railways is going to expand to such an extent that they will be in this fortunate position, and is it on the basis of an expansion of traffic that the valuation he quoted of £3,500,000 which was placed upon these railways by an engineering expert was made? He did not himself seem to place any great faith upon that valuation, because he told us that it would be treated as a book debt of the Iraq Government which was to be recovered in the remote future, probably about the same time as German reparation.
There was another interesting statement in regard to the railways upon which further light ought to be shown. He has assured us that a syndicate had considered the purchase of the railways, but that the Government had refused the offer. The House is entitled to know what that offer was. It is entitled to know what a commercial company thought that this railway was worth, as it is only on the basis of what a commercial company thought that this railway was worth that we can really put a value upon the undertaking. He made a statement in parentheses, about this company requiring a guarantee of its interest. Of course, if this company required a guarantee of its interest, it clearly shows that it had little faith in the dividend-earning capacity of the railways. We may therefore draw the conclusion that, whether this railway be directly in the hands of the Colonial Office or in the hands of the Iraq Government, which means that the Colonial Office will still be indirectly responsible, there is on a
commercial basis a serious risk that it will still continue to be a charge upon the taxpayers of this country.
I should like to put a further question to the hon. Gentleman. Are we at the end of the expenditure, both in respect of capital and of maintenance, for which we are likely to be chargeable? I think I put two questions either to himself or to the Prime Minister regarding the results of the Cairo Conference. I am glad to see that my right hon. Friend the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) is here, because probably he will be in a better position to enlighten the House on these points than even the hon. Gentleman opposite. I believe that at the Cairo Conference the whole question of the railways was discussed, and that there is on record, if not in the decisions of the Conference, at least in the minutes of the Conference, an estimate as to the charges which would be involved in placing this railway on a permanent commercial basis. The information I have is that the charge ran into millions, is far in excess of anything that has been expended since the Conference, and that the estimate put down in the current year does not by any means exhaust our liability if what was regarded at Cairo as necessary be carried out. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be able to enlighten us on these various questions.
We are told that the military expenditure for defence is due mainly to the expenditure in Iraq having exceeded expectations owing to the delay in the conclusion of the Treaty of Peace with Turkey. In Committee, the hon. Gentleman said that the word "mainly" was inaccurate, and he indicated that it was solely due to that cause. In other words, the crisis of last Autumn in our relations with Turkey arising out of the Greek defeat in Asia Minor, was entirely the cause of greater defensive forces being required in Iraq than had been contemplated when the original Estimate was framed. An effort has been made to ascertain exactly how this money has been expended and in what proportion the expenditure is due to the employment of forces directly under our control and of forces which are in the nature of Arab levies. The question was answered by the Secretary of State for Air, who indicated that it was not in the public interest to give any detailed reply. It is unfortunate that the House cannot
be put into possession of the relative strength of the different military forces in Iraq, because undoubtedly, if we had that information, it would throw light upon the question as to the probability of the Iraq Government becoming at any early moment responsible for its own defence and carrying on the whole business of the Government of that country, unaided by any assistance from Great Britain.
It seems to me that these Estimates, the second of which is an entirely new service, in the first place, strengthened very much the position of those who have always held that the occupation of Mesopotamia was not justifiable on financial grounds, and, further, that it was a source of weakness to us from the military point of view. I think it also indicates that the Government have in contemplation a policy somewhat wider than that which they have up to the present publicly avowed. I believe that no such expenditure as is included in this Supplementary Estimate would ever have been contemplated or incurred if the early termination of our responsibility in Mesopotamia had been anticipated. If, in other words, we were likely to go, no Government would have made itself responsible for such large sums in addition to the money which has already been spent. It is quite true that up till the present the Government have given no clear definition of their policy. The Prime Minister, when he was questioned in the Debate on the Address, gave an answer which threw no light at all upon the intentions of the Government. It was an answer so vague and indefinite that one section of his supporters who had given pledges to support evacuation found themselves able to vote for the Government in the belief that these pledges were going to be carried out, and another section of his supporters who were in favour of the continued and permanent occupation of Mesopotamia also found themselves able to vote for the Government in the belief that that was the policy to which the Government would adhere. One gentleman no longer a member of the Government, in the stress of a by-election—it is perhaps unfair to refer to these painful incidents—pledged himself in favour of the evacuation of Mesopotamia, while at the same time the Noble Lord the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs protested against what he called the policy of "universal
skedaddle." I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs will thank him for the new word; whether it be an improvement on the old phrase "scuttle" I leave it to more classical tastes to determine.
We understand that this is a matter which has been before a Committee of the Cabinet. I should not have referred to this Cabinet Committee had not a forecast of its decisions appeared in the Press. It is important, when forecasts of such decisions appear in the Press, that the first statement as to the Government's policy should be made in the House of Commons. It used to be a general cause of complaint in the days of the late Government that all important communications were made in the first place through the Press and not through the House of Commons. We thought, when the new Government came into power, that in regard to that matter at least we were going to live in a new era, that all these bad precedents would be scrapped, and that the Government would cut off all associations with the Press and follow the old constitutional path of making declarations of policy in the House of Commons. It is therefore a matter of great surprise to me that a very full forecast as to the Government's policy in Mesopotamia should have been made in the columns of an evening newspaper.

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Ormsby-Gore): Does the hon. Member suggest that the Government sent this ill-informed communication to the Press?

Mr. PRINGLE: It is not the habit of Governments to do that. How can a Government communicate? A Government consists of something up to 20 men, and, of course, 20 men do not go down to a newspaper office and sit on the editor's doorstep to make a communication to him. There are other methods by which these communications can be made.

Mr. MOSLEY: The garden suburb.

Mr. PRINGLE: The garden suburb no longer exists, I believe, but possibly the tradition still remains. We talk about the usual channels in this House. There has grown up a system in Downing Street which might be called the usual channels.
I only suggest that this may have come to this newspaper through the usual channels, and I am all the more impressed with the probability of this explanation when I reflect that this newspaper belongs to a very important supporter of His Majesty's Government. In these circumstances, it is not an unnatural suspicion to entertain. The hon. Member said that it was very ill-informed. It certainly was very circumstantial and detailed, and it told exactly all the Departments involved in this Cabinet Committee. It also indicated the respective lines which the different Departments have taken, and the result at which the Committee had arrived, namely, that we were to be in Iraq for at least five years after peace is made with Turkey. It is important, when statements appear in the Press, that the House of Commons should know at once whether that is the policy in contemplation, and it is also worth our while to consider the probability of such a policy being carried out. I can understand a policy of immediate evacuation; I can understand a policy of permanent occupation;, but this policy fixing a term of five years under very uncertain conditions is one which probably has the largest possible number of disadvantages. The real question we have to consider, as to the likelihood of the occupation coming to an end at the termination of the five years, is whether at the present moment the Government are taking steps which are likely to contribute to this end.
Are they at the moment carrying out a policy there which is likely to bring about the termination of our responsibiities at the end of five years 1 There are a number of things which, to my mind, show that this is not being done, and I hope the hon. and gallant Gentleman will be able to show that I am wrong in this matter when I mention the things which seem to indicate that we are not likely to get quit of our responsibilities. In the first place, deportation is a weapon which is being employed in Iraq, not simply deportation of the man in the street, as it were, of ordinary private individuals, as has happened in London only a fortnight ago in relation to Ireland, but deportation of people so important as Cabinet Ministers. I observe that the two Ministers on the Treasury Bench regard that as a matter of some amusement. They apparently think that in the days of the present Govern-
meat the dignity, importance, weight, and authority of Cabinet Ministers have fallen in the scale, and it is therefore a joke to think of persons of such consequence as Cabinet Ministers, but still they are understood, or were understood, to have had some responsibility for the Government of that country, and they would not have become responsible, they would not have attained that position, had it not been believed, either by King Feisal or by the High Commissioner, that they were representative persons, that they were persons of such consequence, authority, and capacity in that community that they were able to take a share in directing the Government of the country. I say it is a serious thing when men who have risen to that height are deported in this way.
One of these gentlemen was deported, I think, two years ago, and he is still prevented from returning to Iraq. I believe he is somewhere on the Continent at the present time. More recently, another gentleman, who also, I think, held Cabinet rank—I think he was at one time Minister of Commerce in one of the Provisional Cabinets, but they all seem to be very provisional, these Cabinets of King Feisal—was waylaid in the High Commissioner's residence. He had an invitation to tea, and when he was leaving after tea he found a motor lorry across the carriage drive, and he was then taken by motor car, deposited on a vessel in the Tigris, and since then he has been languishing on an island in the Persian Gulf. That does not seem to me to be the way to set up an independent State in Iraq. I understand the chief offence of this gentleman was that he refused to have anything to do with the Treaty which has been negotiated between King Feisal and His Majesty's Government. He is understood to have made a speech against it, and having done that, he is accused of sedition and of attacks upon the Government. I think the answer given by the hon. and gallant Gentleman to a question in regard to this deportation was to the effect that this gentleman had been deported because he had been guilty of sedition and of attacks upon the Government. The only overt act of which he is known to have been guilty is that he disapproved of this Treaty and refused to take any responsibility for it. We are also informed that the Cabinet of King Feisal, the Cabinet
which advised him up to the month of September, was brought to an end simply and solely because it could not accept responsibility for this Treaty. These methods of dealing with the local Government do not indicate that our Government are following a path which is likely to lead to self-government in that country.
That is not the only matter. We would like to know what sort of a Cabinet at the present moment is in existence there. Is it selected by the High Commissioner, or has the King of Iraq himself any independent authority in selecting the members of his Cabinet? If he has not, it is a farce to suggest that we are taking steps to pave the way for the independence of Iraq. There is a further matter, which is of equal importance in this connection. One of the main factors to the independence of the country for the future must be that it is able to maintain a military force of its own, that it is able to provide for its own defence. Now what is the situation in regard to defence in Iraq at the present moment? You have really three forces there. The main force for the purpose of keeping order is the Air Force, for which the Minister for Air is responsible. That is the effective force. I think the right hon. Gentleman said that there were practically as many machines in Iraq as we have for the defence of the United Kingdom. I am not going to enter into the question of bombing which is taking place. The right hon. Gentleman has replied to that, and I prefer to deal mainly with the general question of policy. That is the main force for defence. Were that force not there to-day, there would be no safeguard, either for the external defence, or for the internal order, of that country. There is no doubt of that. There is, secondly, a force under the control of, and recruited by, the late High Commissioner, Sir Percy Cox. That is a force consisting of Arabs and Assyrians, but it is not a force that is under the control of the Iraq Government. It is not paid by that Government. There is, in the third place, a native Army, an Arab Army, recruited by King Feisal, but it is a very small body.
We have endeavoured, by questions in this House, to ascertain the relative strengths of these two forces, that is, of the Arab levies which are controlled and enlisted by the High Commissioner and
the Arab army of King Feisal, but that information has been denied on grounds of the public interest. I do not believe that there is any public interest involved at all. It is not going to be of any use to anybody, to the Turks or anybody else, to know the exact proportions of the armies of King Feisal and of the High Commissioner. There is nothing in it. The real force is quite apart from that, namely, the Air Force, and I think the right hen. Gentleman the Minister for Air gave particulars of the Air Force, so that if he could, consistently with the public interest, tell us the strength of the Air Force in Iraq, there can be no justification for refusing us figures regarding the respective strengths of these two other forces. I ask, therefore, that before this Debate comes to a conclusion we should know, first of all, how many Arab troops are controlled by the High Commissioner, and, secondly, how many are controlled by King Feisal. The reason I ask that is that my information is that King Feisal's troops are a very small body, that, in fact, there Las been a practically complete failure of recruitment among them, and the reason is simple. The soldiers recruited by the High Commissioner get a higher rate of pay than do King Feisal's, and the consequence is that all the men who want to join the army join the higher paid force, and there is only the dregs left to this titular King. If you pursue a policy of this kind, it is obvious that you cannot create an army which can provide for the independent defence of that country for the future. If you are going to have fair terms for recruitment for both forces, the rate of pay should be the same for both. Otherwise, if you are going to recruit a cheaper force, obviously that cheaper force is going to be an inferior force, both in material and in numbers. While these conditions continue, it indicates that you are not encouraging the ideal of enabling the King to become independent, and to be responsible for the defence and order of the country.
But there is a further thing, which is of far greater importance, and that is the calling of a Constituent Assembly. This is an old friend. A Constituent Assembly was promised by Mr. Churchill, I think, more than two years ago, before King Feisal's election. He at that time said
that within a very short time, I think within two months, this Constituent Assembly would be called together and that the election of King Feisal would be ratified by that Assembly. It was put off on one pretext or another from time to time. A further pledge was made about a year ago, that this Constituent Assembly was to come into existence, but it has not yet been summoned, and so far as one can ascertain from answers given by Ministers, there is no immediate intention of summoning that Assembly. I say that, in the absence of some such Assembly, we can have no real evidence, in the first place, that the existing ré gime meets with The approval of the people of Iraq, nor can we have any indication that effective steps are being taken to create an independent State. In these circumstances, I think there is the strongest ground for doubting whether any such policy is intended to be effectively carried out, or whether, if it be intended, it can in fact be carried out.
I pass from that matter. There has been a strong point made in various discussions regarding the continuance of our occupation and the pledge which has been given that we should remain in Iraq, but I am not going to go into the numerous pledges which have been given from time to time by different Ministers, and by different persons on behalf of different Ministers, as to the future of Iraq. We are told that we have given a solemn pledge to the people of Iraq to remain there, and that if that pledge be not carried out a stain will rest upon the national honour. I am very glad to find Ministers fastidious about the national honour. If the same care had been shown about other pledges in the past, it would have been better for the national honour. I think that pledges as binding and as solemn were given on behalf of the Armenians in order to obtain their participation in the War, but they have been abandoned. There are other people, not only in the Near East, but on the Continent of Europe, who are also able to look to this country for the fulfilment of pledges, and I think that what is going on at the present time in various parts of the Continent, not only on the Western frontier, but also in the East of Europe, in regard to Eastern Galicia and in regard to Lithuania, indicates that there is some failure in the carrying out of pledges. I therefore wonder, when such insistence is made upon the fulfilment of
this pledge, whether it is really the pledge that they are anxious about, or whether there is not something else in it.
My right hon. Friend the Member for the Carnarvon Boroughs was perfectly frank about it in 1920. He, of course, did lay stress upon the pledge, as he was entitled to do, but he said there was a great deal more; there was oil there. It was the main justification he then offered, or one of the most important arguments which he offered, in answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith). There you have, of course, an obligation with an interest. I know that the present Prime Minister has denied that oil has anything to do with it. He made that denial very specifically, in answer to the Noble Lady the Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Viscountess Astor) in a former Debate. I think the hon. and gallant Gentleman on the Front Bench told us that we have come to the conclusion now that there is no oil. We are told that the Admiralty are very anxious about oil, and it is because of oil that the Admiralty are anxious that we should stay in Iraq, and should not immediately abandon it. They say it is not only the question of our defence of the oil fields of the existing oil companies, which could be easily effected from Basra, but the prospective supplies of oil in Mosul. I am anxious to know whether this is a factor which is entering into the decision of the Government at the present time. I think the House is entitled to have a specific statement, and not a general denial of what appears in the newspapers. We are entitled to have a specific statement on behalf of the Ministry, that this factor is not entering at all into the decision which is now on the point of being taken.
There is a further reason why I ask this question. In the course of past Debates, we have had speeches from hon. Gentlemen opposite from various points of view. Some of those hon. Members made very well-informed and instructive speeches about Mesopotamia, notably the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Milne), who, knowing the country, represented that it was worth our while to remain in the country from the point of view of the prospective oil supplies of Mosul. If the people who are in favour of staying, advocate it quite openly and candidly in this House on the ground
that there are potential supplies of oil, I think the Government could make a perfectly specific statement so that we might know exactly where we are. Of course, I am not one of those who suggest that there is nothing at all in Mesopotamia. I do not suggest there are not rich natural resources in that country, or that there are not great possibilities in the production of wheat, cotton and many other things, and that in the future Mesopotamia under well-regulated government might not become a great source of supply of all these things. I quite agree. The question which this House has to consider is, whether, in view of the present position of the country, we are entitled, first of all, to incur the financial liability; secondly, to run the military risk, and, thirdly, to be exposed to the political weakness—all these on the ground that some time in the future, after running all these risks, and incurring all the expenditure, these vast natural resources may be made available and contribute to the commonwealth of the world, and, in particular, to the benefit of this country? These are the questions that call for an answer, and the case I am now endeavouring to put is that in our present financial position in this country, we have no right to spend this money. When, as was said yesterday, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is going to stand hat in hand, taking the sixpences at the door of the British Museum from poor people who want to go in there, we have no right to spend millions in Mesopotamia.
There is a further question, apart altogether from the actual expenditure. It is true the actual expenditure in the current year is not high. It is true the estimated expenditure for next year is comparatively light. But nobody can give us any guarantee that at any moment that expenditure may not have to be very largely increased, and undefined liabilities incurred. The hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite could not promise that, owing to disturbances in that area, we might not be compelled to spend a great deal more in the new year than he has actually estimated. The fact is, there is no doubt that, from a military point of view, Mesopotamia is a source of weakness to the Empire. That is agreed, I think, by practically every military authority. We have two very distinguished military authorities in this House, the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member
for Kirkcaldy (Major-General Sir R. Hutchison), who in the last Debate made a very interesting and well-informed speech upon this subject, and the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for one of the Divisions of Ayrshire. From the military point of view, those two hon. Members are agreed that Mesopotamia is a source of weakness to us. We know that two of the most distinguished soldiers that this country has recently produced, two Generals who have held the high office of Chief of the Imperial General Staff in succession—Sir William Robertson and the late Sir Henry Wilson—are alike agreed that you are really creating a danger to the Empire by maintaining a military force away in that remote region 750 miles from the sea, with difficult communications, and, furthermore, that maintaining that force there is weakening the general defence of the Empire. There was a statement made in one of these Debates, or in one of the notes to the recent Estimates, that if the troops were not there, they would be somewhere else, and that they would cost as much. I wonder if anybody at the War Office was responsible for that. I doubt if anybody on the General Staff would make himself responsible for a statement of that kind.
One of the difficulties at the present moment is that, owing to the scattered obligations, there is a difficulty in making the British Army effective for any emergencies. There has never been a time in recent history in which so small a part of the British Army could be made available for any purpose. I say that in these circumstances it is our duty to see that these commitments are reduced, so that, as far as possible, in the difficult times that lie ahead, the military strength of Great Britain may be conserved. I think everyone in this House will agree that we have difficult times ahead. Nobody cares to look with equanimity on the present conditions in Europe, and I think everybody will agree that one reason for our comparative helplessness is that, from a military point of view, at the present time we are impotent. One factor which has contributed largely to that impotence is the dissipation of our resources in these remote places. It has also a political aspect. We have been asked not to deal with this, because of the difficult negotiations. I think it is common
ground that our hand has been weakened in these negotiations by the fact that we were in Mosul. If we had not exposed, as it were, a vulnerable side, there is no doubt that the British negotiators in the recent proceedings at Lausanne would have been able to speak with much more effect.

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member has now gone all round the world twice. I think if he will look at the Estimate, it is rather difficult to bring in the whole policy of the country on all these matters.

Mr. PRINGLE: I would call your attention, Sir, to page 12, where it says:
DEFENCE.—The excess is due mainly to expenditure in Iraq having exceeded expectations. Owing to the delay in the conclusion of a Treaty of Peace with Turkey, it has not been found possible to complete the reductions in the Iraq garrison that were contemplated when the original Estimate was framed.
It may be true that, in some of my earlier observations, I did go some way, but I would humbly and respectfully submit to you that I had just come to the point at which I was coming into order.

Mr. SPEAKER: It is a pity that the preamble has taken 40 minutes.

Mr. PRINGLE: I must thank you for your indulgence. Undoubtedly this expenditure for defence is entirely due to our relations with Turkey. Had we been at peace with Turkey, had the crisis of September last not arisen, this expenditure would not have been incurred, and, as this expenditure has been incurred for that purpose, I submit that I am entitled to draw the conclusion, first of all, that our presence there is a weakness from the military point of view, and secondly, because of the difficulties of our position, it is weakening us in that region. It is for that reason, among others, that I am asking the House to withhold its assent to this Vote. I regret that there should be any talk of scuttling or any of those things. The real question is, what responsibility is this Government entitled to undertake in view of all its necessary commitments and its financial resources? We have evacuated the City of Dublin. I think it is much more necessary for us to be in touch with Dublin than the Middle East. It is because of the complete loss of perspective as to values with regard to the
British Empire, that I ask the House to disapprove of this policy and on this occasion to withhold its assent to the Vote.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I am sure I may be allowed, without being accused of party bias, to congratulate my hon. Friend who has just sat down, on the very forceful case he has made, and I will endeavour, in a very few words, to fill in the gaps he may possibly have left, and not traverse the ground he has so fully covered. I want particularly to deal with this question of pledges. Let me, first of all, detail the five separate and distinct reasons that have been given for the necessity of our remaining in Mesopotamia—a word which I prefer to its newer one of Iraq, because it is better known by that name to the people, and to many thousands of returned officers and men who are able, at first-hand, to assure their relatives and friends of its utter worthlessness now and in the future to the British Empire. The first reason we were given during the War—it was for the strategical defence of India. That reason was also repeated later as an argument for our staying in that country. The next reason was the more honest but not quite so defensible one of pure, simple, and naked Imperialism. We were told that this was another vast area which was to be added to the British Empire. Of course, there were a few amiable references to the future purpose of training up the inhabitants to govern themselves, and other hypocritical statements of that kind. The form of government which we imposed after the capture of the territory, which was simply taken holus-bolus on the Indian system, bore out that, as I say, honest but not altogether admirable reason for seizing hold of, and remaining in Mesopotamia. The third reason was the one which has been referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. Pringle), on which I will only touch in passing, namely, the fabulous and visionary oil resources of the country, and of Mosul in particular. That is rather a dangerous topic nowadays.

Sir F. BANBURY: Why?

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Because we are accused of exploiting a mandate for the purpose of developing, to our exclusive benefit, certain oil fields,
and it is a dangerous thing to talk about. It is dangerous to suggest that we are attempting to remain in this country because of its mineral resources, in that it causes our good faith to be assailed throughout the world. Then oil became rather unpopular, and we were told that corn and cotton were the attractive things.

Sir F. BANBURY: Who said all this?

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: It has been said again and again from the Front Bench by the former Government— by my right hon. Friend the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George). The hon. Baronet voted with him on those occasions, and supported him again and again. We were told that cotton, equal to the best Egyptian cotton, could be grown in Mesopotamia. An attempt was made to bamboozle the electors of Lancashire by talk of that sort. I come to the last reason given, namely, that we have certain pledges to the Chaldeans. This last pledge, which is the most modern one produced to justify our policy in Mesopotamia, is the one I wish to deal with in a very few words. Again and again in the last Parliament, and in fact in this, this excuse of pledges to the local notables, and so on, has been trotted out. It was given as a reason, in the last Parliament, for remaining in North Russia, by Mr. Churchill and other apologists of the Government policy. We were told we had entered into certain arrangements with the local people there. That was given as a reason for remaining for many months, at enormous cost and at great risk, in the Caucasus. We kept an army in Persia for very nearly two years after the Armistice for exactly the same alleged reason. The same argument has been used in connection with places much nearer home.
I want to put it to the House that this excuse is a hollow one. We are told that the Chaldeans are fine fighting stock. At the same time we are told they are in imminent peril unless we are there to defend them. Yet the Government assures us that, as soon as they safely can, they are going to hand over the entire responsibility for those regions to an Arab Government. The Chaldeans have existed in those regions for countless generations. I do not know how many hundreds of years they have been there, upholders in the Far East of the Christian faith, and they have managed
to survive. I want to know what difference five or 10 years of British rule is going to make to their relative immunity. Because of these people we are to go on pouring out our millions, at great risk to the Empire, when our own people are being stinted of the houses and the other amenities which they were promised during the War. I think it is an excuse which is very hollow and very improper, and that it is quite time the Government thought of something else.
I want to hark back for one moment to the strategical question. The question of the strategical defence of India has been raised again and again in another place by the Noble Lord who is at the head of the Foreign Office. It has been well said that the military mind, if it could conquer the planet of Mars, would fit out an expedition to attack Venus in order to safeguard our communications. We have a very good example of that with regard to Mesopotamia. First, we had to push our Indian frontiers right up to the Himalayas. Then we had to take Mesopotamia. When we were there we had to keep a force in Persia in order to guard the northern frontiers, and quite recently in the negotiations at Lausanne, we were told the reason why it was necessary for us to insist on the right to send warships into the Black Sea was in order to safeguard our position in Mesopotamia. Apparently we were asked to believe that, because we were in Mesopotamia and held Mosul, it was necessary to be able to control, by naval force, the sea routes in the Black Sea. Then I suppose we will have to hold the forts of the Black Sea, and so the story will go on without end, except, possibly, for the complete bankruptcy and ruin of our finances for a very long period ahead.
I wish to say one word about another bogey which is put up before us. We are told that if we walk out of Mesopotamia to-day, the Turk will walk into it. I want to choose my words carefully. I do not want to say anything of which it can be said that it will embarrass the Government in the forthcoming negotiations. The dominant party in Turkey to-day is preaching the doctrine that the weakness of Turkey in the past was the fact that it allowed its resources to be sucked and exhausted in Arabia and Mesopotamia, and other non-Turkish lands. The present
dominant party in Turkey is preaching the doctrine of Turkey for the Turks. All the leaders I have had the privilege of speaking to from Turkey assure me that they wish to consolidate themselves within their natural frontiers, and that they are not going to follow again the policy which cost them so dearly in the past with regard to Mesopotamia. It is true that they claim Mosul, but I think that is very largely for bargaining purposes. At any rate, it would have been possible some time ago, and I believe it would be possible now, in spite of the altered relative position, to come to an agreement with the Turks, which the Turks would keep, partly because it would be in their own self-interest, that they would respect the integrity and independence of Mesopotamia as long as we requested them to do so. I will make a present of this to the Government; they can attack me on it, if they think it worth while, when they reply; but circumstances might arise when we, perhaps, would be rather relieved to see Turkish rule keeping order in that part of the world, or, at any rate, in the northern region thereof.
I wish now to address one or two questions to the hon. and gallant Member who represents the Air Ministry in this House. I want particularly to ask him about this camp in Mesopotamia, for which part of this Vote is required.

The SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Lieut.-Colonel Sir S. Hoare): I do not want to interrupt my hon. Friend, but may I point out that the camp to which he alludes is not on this Vote. It is on the Air Vote for to-morrow. I am quite ready to deal with the matter either to-day or to-morrow, whenever the discussion may take place.

Lieut.- Commander KENWORTHY: If it is coming up to-morrow, then I will not raise it at this stage.

Mr. SPEAKER: The Rule of the House is, that where a matter Concerns a specific Vote, it can only be raised upon that Vote, and not upon a more general Vote.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: I do not wish to raise it now if it is going to be dealt with to-morrow. I saw the hon. and gallant Member present, and I thought I might raise it on the plea of defence; but I will not go further into it now. I wish to support my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone in pointing
out the very great danger which we must incur as long as we are in these regions. It may be possible to cut down the expenditure to £10,000,000 a year, but at any moment we may find ourselves faced with the necessity of reinforcing our posts, which are over 700 miles from the sea, in attempting to defend the frontier, with no natural bounds, over 1,200 miles in length. The natural frontiers of Mesopotamia are the mountains of Turkistan, which we make no attempt to hold.
5.0 P.M.
I also say that the Government must really face the question whether the time has not come to state that there shall be a short time limit after which our troops will be definitely withdrawn. I think that time has been reached, and in that I am reinforced by the opinion of a very distinguished soldier and savant on all Arabic questions: namely, Colonel Lawrence. If I may, I will quote to the House a few sentences from a letter written by Colonel Lawrence to the "Times" as long ago as July, 1921. Colonel Lawrence then said, after dealing with the whole question of Mesopotamia very fully, that he advocated the following counsel. This is what he suggested very nearly two years ago, and I venture to say that this advice is still good and that it is nearly two years overdue. Colonel Lawrence said:
I would make Arabic the Government language. This would impose a reduction of the British staff, and a return to employment of qualified Arabs. I would raise two divisions of local volunteer troops of Arabs with a senior general in command.
He goes on to say that trained officers and non-commissioned officers exist in thousands. Why are we still told that the Arab levies are not ready, that they cannot be filled up, and so on?
I would entrust to these new units the maintenance of order, and I would cause to leave the country every single British soldier and every single Indian soldier.
That is what Colonel Lawrence says—probably the greatest authority on this question—writing in July, 1921. [An HON. MEMBER: "How long was he in Mesopotamia?"]
These changes will take 12 months, and we should then hold Mesopotamia exactly as much or as little as we hold South Africa or Canada. I believe the Arabs in those conditions would be as loyal as anyone in the Empire, and they would not cost us a cent.
At any rate, Colonel Lawrence has been in Mesopotamia longer than I have, and
I am quite content to base myself on that statement of his. The fact of the matter is that the Government and its predecessors, have never really been able to make up their minds. It has been a policy of wobble, as in so many other parts of the world. I may quote a few lines of poetry from Kipling, summed up in the lines of the soldier who said that a certain position had arisen,
All because of muddle, all because of mess, 
All because of doing things rather more than less.
We have never been able to make up our minds to do the bold thing with regard to Mesopotamia. We cannot afford to stay there; that is perfectly obvious. The finance of the country will not stand it. We cannot afford, from the military point of view, to stay there, because we are always liable to find ourselves compelled to reinforce our garrison in that country. We certainly cannot afford the Air Forces that we have to keep there. All the efficient air machines and men which are available should be in this country ready for the defence of London. That is where the danger lies, thanks to the result of the policy of this Government and its predecessors. That is where the defence is needed, and every machine and pilot in Mesopotamia is enforcing an unwilling allegiance on reluctant Arabs at the cost of the safety, defence, and diplomatic power of the inhabitants of this country. It may be difficult at this moment to say that we will leave before we have peace with the Turks, but that has been said for the last four years, and the fact is that we are incurring in those deserts a source of weakness in our negotiations with the Turks.
I believe it would be possible even now to make suitable arrangements with the Turks whereby they would agree not to interfere with, at any rate, the lower part of Mesopotamia. For those reasons I do beg the House to give a decisive vote against this expenditure in Mesopotamia.

Sir PARK GOFF: The last time I had the privilege of addressing the House on this subject was on the 15th of December, 1920, just after my return from the East. I have had several opportunities since of visiting the East, and I am of the same opinion to-day as I was two years ago. At the General Election I stated
perfectly plainly on all my platforms that it was my profound and convinced belief that we should remain in Mesopotamia until such time as we had established sound and stable government there. I am, as I always have been, pro-French and pro-Turk. I will put forward three reasons why I think we should at the present time retain Mesopotamia. There are very many people in this country who are determined that all our sacrifices there shall not be in vain and that we ought not to be robbed of the fruits of victory, and we are all fully aware that there are many other countries who are as fully aware as we are of the importance of Mesopotamia financially, commercially, and strategically. I know full well that we cannot expect to reap any benefit immediately, but to my mind these are minor points. What I do wish to impress on the House from my own experience of that country is the geographical and strategical position of Mesopotamia as far as the British Empire is concerned. It is in my humble judgment of paramount importance to the British Empire and to the safety of Europe and also of the East. We are often asked for a definition of a great statesman. I venture to suggest that a great statesman is a man who can anticipate events and have foresight to look forward to the future, and to legislate 25 or 50 years ahead. One of the greatest acts of diplomacy in this country was in November, 1875, when in this House, against enormous opposition both in this House, outside this House, and in the Press, Mr. Disraeli insisted on buying the Suez Canal shares. By that means he established a high water way to the East and a link between England and the Indian Empire. Now history may be repeating itself to-day. There is no doubt, as far as our Empire is concerned, that by possessing strategic points throughout the whole world we have been able to maintain the British Empire in the position in which it is to-day. Imagine the jaundiced eye of a German skipper going from Hamburg to Shanghai when he beholds the Union Jack floating at Dover, at Gibraltar, at Suez, at Aden, at Colombo, at Singapore, and Hong Kong. He would feel inclined to say, like the man who saw a giraffe for the first time at the Zoo, "it simply ain't
true." It is an eye-opener to the man who goes out there for the first time.
The first time I visited Turkey was 27 years ago, and I watched there with the very keenest interest, and also with the deepest concern the rising ascendancy of German influence and power and the corresponding set-back of British prestige in that country. For 15 years prior to 1914 the Germans were working and negotiating every day for the concession of the Bagdad railway. Berlin to Bagdad was part, and I think the greatest part, of their dream of world-wide dominion. I believe their ultimate goal was India at that time. Look at the importance of that concession; they knew what they were about. If they were working for that concession, surely it is worth our while to take note and to see that we should take a hand. Whereas they could get from Hamburg to Berlin, from Berlin to Vienna and on to Constantinople and Aleppo—which in future will be the great Clapham Junction of the East—where porters could soon be shouting "Change here for India, Abyssinia, and Cape Town." If they laid such great stress on that, we would be foolish if we did not take a hint from them. Not only does it affect us because Aleppo is the junction there, but it is next to the most important seaport of the eastern Mediterranean, Alexandretta. I agree that no one who is even occasionally threatened with intelligence would accuse the Germans of losing any opportunity for want of foresight. They are essentially a race whose bump of acquisitiveness has always been enormously developed. A great French statesman, Mirabeau, said a hundred years ago "the national industry of Prussia is war." The Germans were taking no chances. They wanted an alternative route, a route by water. Directly they got the concession for the Bagdad railway, bills were passed in the Reichstag for linking up by canals the Elbe, the Oder, the Rhine and the Danube, so that they could be able to send their destroyers straight from the Baltic and the North Sea to the Black Sea. At present there is a connecting canal from Aschaffenberg through Bavaria to Passau above Vienna. That was, in 1914, widened and deepened to allow vessels of 2,000 tons to pass through at that time, so we cannot complain of the Germans not having foresight and not paying a great deal
of attention to Mesopotamia and the East. After the peace with Russia, the Reichstag passed another Bill for a canal from the Gulf of Riga to the Dnieper, thereby giving them another alternative route. If they had had the Bagdad railway and these canals linked up they would have been on the high road to the East; they would have had a waterway to the East, and their fleet behind the Dardanelles forts could have commanded our Mediterranean trade.
I have heard some people say that as Russia let us down it would serve Russia right to be ruled by Germany and that we should not interfere. That" is a most dangerous doctrine, especially when we consider that 80 per cent, of the Russian peasants are absolutely illiterate and helpless. I put two points before the House. Giving us the Bagdad Railway, we have a land route to the East, and by the Suez Canal we have an alternative waterway to the East. If there were danger in Egypt and that canal were blown up, we could rely on the high road through Mesopotamia to the East. Apart from the importance to us of Mesopotamia as the high road to India and the East, it is all-important in my humble judgment as a buffer State for the peace of Europe. To the south you have Egypt; on the east the persian Gulf and India; on the north-east Armenia, Persia and Georgia; and on the north-west the volcanic Balkan States and Bessarabia, which is likely to give us trouble at any time. I lay great stress on our situation at Mesopotamia as a buffer State for the peace of Europe, and I believe that if we remain there until we have that stable government established, we will be the messengers of peace in that part of the world.
We have heard a good deal about economy so far as Mesopotamia is concerned. We are all economical, or we try to be, but I am sure there is no patriot who is ever out for economy at the expense of British prestige. It is all very easy for us to give popular votes to please constituents, but this is not a passing phase of that sort at all. When we vote now we are voting to maintain the strength and dignity of the Empire, not for ourselves, but for many generations yet unborn. Many may not have had the opportunity of studying this subject; many may not have cared to do so, and many have not
had the opportunity to go there. That is not their fault or our fault; it is the fault of our insular position. There are some people whose only knowledge of Mesopotamia is gleaned from the Book of Genesis. May I say most respectfully that some of us are far too apt to be too parochial? We think far too little of these great and powerful nations which surround us, and far too much of our own particular parish at home. Now, there are two ways of holding Mesopotamia. We can hold it by battalions or without them. We all wish to hold Mesopotamia without them, but there is one condition precedent to that, and that is a strong, lasting peace with our old friend the Turk. I believe sincerely, and I hope, that that alliance will come about at the earliest possible moment. I believe that Mosul is essential to Mesopotamia, is part and parcel of that province. I feel sure that when we have this alliance with the Turk that he will see it in the same light; he will recognise that it can only be part and parcel of the province of Mesopotamia. I have always taken the very keenest interest in all Eastern questions. I am profoundly convinced that we should not at any cost let go our grip and hold upon Mesopotamia for reasons I have already given. I believe that commercially, financially, strategically and geographically this is one of the most important spots in the whole British Empire at the present time, and also for the peace of Europe, which ultimately will moan the peace of the world. I maintain on this ground that we should support our occupation of Mesopotamia, on patriotic grounds, and also on the ground of peace—on both these grounds. In that way we will still keep our Empire solid and intact and in the forefront of every nation of the world, a position it has held for centuries in the past, and, with God's help, will hold for centuries to come.

Mr. G. LAMBERT: May I congratulate the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down on his very full-blooded oration? It carries us back into history and forward into the future. I feel specially touched myself that he taunted some of us on this side with being parochial. I honestly confess that I should prefer the British taxpayers' money being spent in Britain than in Mesopotamia. My hon. Friend has stated that we could not give up the
fruits of victory. The fruits of victory have been very bitter indeed. We have spent £150,000,000 in Mesopotamia since the War, on perhaps a moderate computation, and our returns have been small indeed. May I ask the hon. Gentleman opposite when he forces the strategic value of Mesopotamia to our Empire, to study the opinions of two of our distinguished chiefs of the General Staff, General Sir William Robertson and Sir Henry Wilson?

Sir P. GOFF: I have studied the opinion of two Turkish officers, one naval and the other military.

Mr. LAMBERT: I prefer to look to British Chiefs of the Staff than to officers of the Turks. However, I really am more interested in asking some questions of the Government as to their policy in Mesopotamia. They have stated—with I admit some reason—that they cannot say for certain what their policy will be until the Treaty with Turkey is completed. I feel that is reasonable, but I want to make perfectly sure that the local people in Mesopotamia, at Bagdad, are not entrenching themselves, and making the British occupation more certain and the British evacuation more difficult. I did not propose to intervene, and I do not wish to intervene for very long, but simply and solely to draw attention to a message which is being given to the public in the "Times" of Saturday from the correspondent of that journal at Bagdad. Long before 6th March we seemed to be in process of being committed to the future policy of the officials in Bagdad. I will give one or two quotations. The article is headed "New Era in Iraq." It is dated 2nd March, and it says:
This week has seen the publication of the Administrative Inspectorate Regulations.
What are they? That is a question which I think we have a right to ask. Then the correspondent goes on to say:
These Regulations will form one of the principal supplements to the Anglo-Iraq Treaty ….
That Treaty binds the British Government to advise and to defend Mesopotamia for King Feisal for a period of 20 years. The Prime Minister has very rightly said that he will give the House of Commons the opportunity of discussing this matter
before we rise. But I ask him, why are Regulations now being issued in Bagdad by the local people which are an accompaniment of the Treaty? I much doubt if the Government can get the House to ratify that Treaty. I do not believe the House of Commons will ratify it—for 20 years, anyhow. But it is the Regulations which have come forward which have instigated me to take a part in the Debate. Whilst hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench opposite are saying, with a good deal of reason, that they cannot give a decision until the Turkish matter is settled, I do want to be perfectly certain that these gentlemen over there shall not take this thing in hand and so make evacuation more difficult. Then the communication continues:
Relations with Sultan Ibn Saud and Central Arabia have been defined by Treaty.
What is that Treaty? What responsibilities does it impose? The only Treaty, as I understand it, with this potentate— whose name I have a difficulty in pronouncing—is that we pay him £5,000 monthly, and a lump sum of £30,000. That is what happened last year. What is this Treaty, I ask again? Has my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to the Colonies any knowledge of it? I am asking this in no polemical spirit, but simply and solely because I want to know what these local people are doing, and whether or not the Government can really control their local officials, and what, in fact, they have done. Then, again, it is stated in this article that there is a
huge area of splendid land in Iraq thirsting for a proper flow of water.
Does that mean that the British officials intend to go in for a very large scheme of irrigation work there? We are told again in this very selfsame article that directly the Mesopotamian Budget is balanced, and they are making a very strenuous effort to balance it this year, they will apply for a loan in the British market. I cannot believe that any British financier would grant a loan to Mesopotamia without a British Government guarantee. It is obvious, I think, that to go into the City of London with the security only of the Arab Government and ask for a loan would make it certain to be refused. It seems to me that the course that these officials are pursuing is a policy which
tends to the continued occupation of Mesopotamia. I hope that is not so, but I am asking for information. If it is so, we must have a good deal more to say about it. Again, the article says:
As regards the policing of the territory it is done by the Arabs "—
which my right hon. Friend knows. In any criticism that I make, it will never be of the men on the spot. They are carrying what there believe to be their instructions. It is the man here who has imposed this responsibility upon them. I have never been one in the least degree to run down my country abroad, but what is said here about the policing of the country, and about its hundred thousand wild tribesmen, makes one pause. We are told that these tribes men are the principal taxpayers. There fore, my right hon. Friend the head of the Air Force will have to use his force as a tax-collecting force in Mesopotamia. How are the taxes to be collected with these 100,000 well-armed tribesmen? If they refuse to pay, how is the money going to be collected? It will mean, unless my right hon. Friend with his Air Force collects them—

Sir S. HOARE: There is a force of civil police expressly for this purpose of collecting taxes.

Mr. LAMBERT: I thank my right hon. Friend very much that he has had the kindness to reply at once to me, but then this Article says:
When local trouble occurs, the ultimate sanction for restoring order is the Air arm, the local police "—
upon which my right hon. Friend depends—
not being strong enough to deal with the tribes unaided.
That is the very point my right hon. Friend has just replied to. The local police are not strong enough to deal with the tribes, and, therefore, the Air Force must be the ultimate authority for these tribesmen to pay their taxes. The job of the Air Force will be to collect the taxes. They will be a tax collecting body. I do not think my right hon. Friend realises at all their position. This is an article that comes from Bagdad, published in the "Times" of Saturday, which says the local police are not strong enough, and therefore, when you want to collect taxes from the taxpayer—and none of us like
very much to pay taxes—there will be difficulty. I do not think the Government really know what is going on. My point is this—and I will not elaborate it further—and especially not to go into the matter since Mr. Speaker's ruling—but I do ask that we should have an assurance here this afternoon that nothing shall be done to prejudice the final evacuation of Mesopotamia by the British authorities. While recognising the difficulty of the Government of giving a reply, as I have said, I do not press the matter in view of that, I do think we are entitled to ask that nothing shall be done to prejudice our position. I believe the British taxpayer will not tolerate spending more millions of money in Mesopotamia. I believe that that country will be, instead of a strength, a strategic weakness to our Indian Empire.

Mr. MOSLEY: The hon. Gentleman who last spoke from the Government Benches said, in the course of his remarks, that the Turks saw matters in much the same light as he did himself; and that, as it appears to me, can very easily be believed, because the idea which he advanced belonged properly to exactly that period of history when the modern Turks would have been quite up to date. The hon. Gentleman had, indeed, the courage of his convictions, and I shall be interested to hear if the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, when he comes to reply, will endorse all the opinions of his more ardent supporter. At last we have cast to the winds all this milk-and-water talk about pledges to the Arabs and sacred trusts on behalf of humanity and on behalf of mankind. All these things have been cast away at length, and, instead, the hon. Gentleman comes down and declaims upon the virtues of a Disraelian policy which would secure for this country strategic points and commercial and financial advantages of an exclusive character. Has he never devoted any study at all to the conditions under which we are occupying Mesopotamia? Is he really unaware that we are only in that country under the mandatory system, by which it is specifically laid down that the mandatory Power can derive no exclusive advantage of any kind for its own nationals? If he has studied the conditions under which we are in Mesopotamia, and the provisions of the Covenant of the League of Nations, what is the
purpose of urging the continued occupation of Mesopotamia upon the ground of strategic and commercial advantages of an exclusive character to this country?
I think we are, indeed, entitled to ask from the Government a very specific declaration of policy. As I see it, there are, roughly, five inferences which may be drawn by the people of this country from the statements of Government spokesmen regarding their policy and their position. To begin with, we were told that this country was committed to a Treaty with King Feisal which bound us to the occupation of that country for 20 years. Then, during the Election and subsequently, we were told by the Prime Minister that he wanted to go at the earliest possible moment; and Major Hills, in the course of his by-election, reiterated that policy. Then we were told by the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies during the last Debate that we could not possibly consider evacuating Mesopotamia untl we had made peace with Turkey. Now we see in our morning Press that we cannot leave that country until a period of five years has elapsed, and that that is the decision of the Cabinet Committee. These are four distinct policies, and there is yet a fifth, which has been adumbrated in the speeches of some of the most distinguished members of the Government, and which seems to advance the doctrine that never can this country, by any possible chance, evacuate any district, whether held by Mandate or otherwise, where the British flag has once been flown. There are some five possible policies which the Government have laid before the country, five distinct inferences which can be drawn from the statements of Government spokesmen. Is it not time, in view of the popular excitement upon this question, that the Government undertook to give a clear, definite, and decisive statement of what their policy really is?
With regard to the argument that we cannot evacuate Mesopotamia until we have concluded final peace with Turkey, it is argued that, if we now evacuated Mesopotamia, we should appear to yield to a threat of force from Turkey, and that, consequently, we cannot evacuate that country without a grave derogation from our national prestige. There is, however, no point at issue between Turkey and Great Britain regarding
Mesopotamia at the moment. That is precisely one of those points upon which we carried our case at the Lausanne Conference. It was agreed at the Lausanne Conference that an interval of a year should be allowed to elapse for friendly negotiations between the two Governments, and that, if no agreement were reached, it should be referred to the arbitration of the League of Nations. And I observe, from the summary issued by the Foreign Office, I think last Saturday, of a communication from Ismet Pasha, that Ismet Pasha, after the discussion at the Angora Assembly, stands by that arrangement, and in no way attempts to go back upon it, and that, consequently, an amicable arrangement has been reached between the two Governments regarding the question of Mesopotamia. If that be so, how can it be argued that, if the Government now decide to evacuate Mesopotamia, we are doing so in face of a threat of violence from Turkey? If the matter has been settled, how can anyone say we cannot evacuate that country without loss of national prestige?
In regard to the new policy which has been adumbrated in the Press, the policy of remaining in Mesopotamia for a period of five years, the hon. Gentleman said that this report was highly inaccurate. If that be so, I think the House is entitled to some accurate information, if the Cabinet Committee have, indeed, arrived at a decision. Perhaps, as my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. Pringle) says, some of the old habits still survive. Perhaps, automatically, Ministers and Secretaries and others find their feet wandering in the direction of Press correspondents at the conclusion of confidential and secret discussions. Lifelong habits cannot be broken in the course of a few days or a few months, and, once the habit of confidential correspondence with the Press has been cultivated, even when you are serving honest, sincere and truthful masters, who are no friends to intrigue, even then the old vicious automatic habits continue like those of some drug fiend, and these people automatically find themselves yearning to go to the Press and divulge confidential information. It is only on some such hypothesis that we can understand how this highly secret and confidential information was all published in the Press this morning. In any case I trust that the
hon. Gentleman, when he comes to reply, will be able to give us some specific information on this point.
If it has been decided to continue in occupation of Mesopotamia for a period of five years and then to evactuate the country, I venture to suggest that such a policy in no way meets the case that is advanced. I would even say that, if you stay there for five years, you may as well stay there altogether. It is the next five years that will impose the heaviest strain on the finance and on the resources of this country, because it is in those five years that we shall have to undergo the full stress and strain of our present economic circumstances. In those five years we shall be faced with all the great burden of unemployment, the difficulty of balancing our Budget, and all the manifold perplexities with which we are now beset. At the end of five years we might be able to undertake this great obligation without any of the risks or dangers which now accompany the undertaking of so grave a burden. More than that, at the end of five years the East may be in a peaceful and settled condition, if ever that can come about. But in the immediate future, during the course of these next five years, we shall be threatened with every menace and every danger in that troubled district. It is precisely in those years that are to come that the danger of a great conflagration in those districts is most imminent, and when it is most desirable that this country should immediately evacuate Mesopotamia and rid itself for ever of this tiresome burden.
It can be urged with some confidence that the longer we remain in Mesopotamia the more difficult it will be for us ultimately to evacuate that country. It is not so much the original pledges that make it difficult now for us to leave. There is nothing in our original pledges that prevents us from leaving to-morrow. That, at least, has emerged during the course of these discussions. It is the obligations that we have entered into during the course of our administration that make it difficult for us to leave. If we stay for yet another five years, what a further opportunity will be given to our friends the crank Imperialists to manufacture yet further obligations and further excuses to prevent us from leaving that unfortunate country. In our first mani-
festo, issued by General Maude, we said that we came as liberators only, that there was no question of our staying for ever in the country. We came as liberators and we stayed as wet nurses for some years, and, as a result of these benignant but superfluous attentions, we are now informed that the infant cannot possibly be weaned for a period of five years. If we go on staying, we make these unfortunate Arabs still more dependent upon us and still more helpless. We shall have turned them from their original habits of life, and yet will not remain long enough to allow them to adopt a Western model of civilisation, for who can argue that five years is long enough for that? At the end of live years they will be more helpless and dependent even than they are to-day. It is like a human body which, having become accustomed to wearing stays, or some such support, grows quite incapable of supporting itself.
At the end of a certain period, if we stay, imposing this semi-Indian administration that we have still in Mesopotamia, upon these wretched people, getting them accustomed to our support and our advice and protection on every conceivable question, it is going to be far more difficult for us to evacuate the country at the end of five years than it is to-day. We shall find every excuse being put forward, every conceivable pledge and obligation being manufactured. The same people who to-day are putting forward this case will come forward armed with a far stronger case, and will be able to induce the people of this country to remain in Mesopotamia in perpetuity. I know that strong arguments are advanced on the contrary side. Those of us who advocate a policy of immediate evacuation are accused of being the advocates of "scuttle," or, as it is now more elegantly phrased, "skedaddle," and I may remark parenthetically how encouraging it is to observe in another place a recrudescence of the classic tradition. There is a certain lightness of touch in this new substituted phrase, but it will weigh heavily on the hearts of those who to-day are in distress and suffering, because money is being torn from the productive industries of this country and squandered on these futile adventures. But what of this argument of "scuttle"? I venture to submit that the light of recent experience has shown that we are all in favour of "scuttle" in
the end. It is a case of when to scuttle. The difference between us and hon. Gentlemen opposite seems to be that we advocate a policy of "scuttle" before the row begins, and they pursue a policy of "scuttle" after the row has begun. If I may be permitted, by way of illustration only, to refer to our immediate experience, we on these benches advocated Dominion Home Rule for Ireland before lives had been lost, money had been
spent—

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. James Hope): If the hon. Member pursues a controversial illustration of that sort, it is obviously open to Ministers to say that his illustration is inaccurate, and, therefore, we should find ourselves involved in a Debate on Ireland.

Mr. PRINGLE: Are we to understand that, on a controversial topic, it is out of order to introduce anything but a non-controversial illustration? Is there any precedent for such a ruling in this House?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Supposing that one hon. Member said, with regard to another, that that hon. Member had a passion for destruction, and wished to kill the Bill under discussion even as he slew his grandmother, that would be an illustration, but it would give an entirely new trend to the Debate.

Mr. PRINGLE: Can the question of Ireland be compared with the killing of a grandmother?

Mr. MOSLEY: I was not going to enter at all into the sphere of controversy, but was merely going to state the fact, which no one would dispute, that we on these benches advocated Dominion Home Rule, which those opposite will not dispute, before outrages had begun on a grand scale in that country, and hon. Members opposite had refused to grant Dominion Home Rule— which, again, they will not dispute; but, after the loss of many lives and the expenditure of millions of money, those hon. Members and that Government passed the very Measure which a year before they had refused to consider. Therefore I say we are the advocates of scuttle before the row begins and hon. Members opposite become advocates of scuttle after the row has begun. I submit there is nothing in the world so detrimental to national prestige as being
full of bluff and bluster until you get into a difficulty and then quietly climbing down. After all, it is possible to walk downstairs will some grace and dignity of one's own free will, but it is impossible to be kicked downstairs with grace or with dignity. Hon. Members opposite always wait to be kicked down. We ask them to walk down. Surely that is not a very unreasonable proposition, and I hope it is one which they will consider.
I ask the Government seriously to consider, supposing we are involved in great trouble in Iraq, which involves the sending of men, money, and arms to that country, are we in a position to undertake it? Have we the resources, and would the people of this country support it? The answer, surely, to these questions must be in the negative. Does any Government conceive that they can induce the people of this country to enter into a long and expensive war for the preservation of Iraq? Unless they think they could carry the people of this country in such a policy they are committing an act that is almost criminal in hanging on to that country, in face of grave menaces, knowing that the moment real trouble breaks out we shall have to evacuate it with enormous loss of prestige. That is a position which must be considered by the Government when they have warnings from soldiers as eminent as Sir Henry Wilson and such warnings as that from General Robertson in that remarkable article which he wrote in the "Morning Post" a few weeks ago pointing out the grave military danger in which we are placed. Surely that is some case for reconsideration. When they regard the innumerable warnings which history brings to the support of this case, when they reflect upon the condition and the fate of those Empires which have endeavoured in the past to maintain enormous commitments in far-flung territories with an inadequate force, when they reflect on those lessons, surely they cannot survey with any equanimity the position of our small and scattered forces in Iraq and throughout the world. It is really on the merest grounds of military strategy not too much to ask the Government to reconsider their position in Iraq. But on broader grounds, when we consider the burden which this commitment is now placing on the people of the country, when we are told that
children will have to pay for their entry into the British Museum and the Chancellor of the Exchequer is at his wits end to scrape together sources from which to levy taxation, when we are having to cut down in the most dangerous way not only our social reform, not only matters like education, not only matters of health and housing, matters which interest hon. Members on this side, but even have to take the very gravest risk in the matter of our air defence, and then when we think that our squadrons are at present being squandered in Iraq which might make this country invulnerable from attack in the air, can we regard the position of the Government with any other emotion than that of hostility?
I put it to the House that there is a certain lack of perspective and a lack of judgment in the present attitude of the Government, which is fraught with the very gravest danger to this country. What are we to think of the myopic vision of statesmen whose eyes are averted from the destruction which their blunders since the War have caused in their own country, who can regard with tranquil gaze the seething cauldron of European politics, but who get enormously excited over the latest freak experiment in Indian administration, men whose eyes are not open to the seething miseries of their cities, but are fixed upon the spectacle of Eastern deserts? It may be a pleasant pastime for a well-educated man to educate Arabs in the art of government, but the pastime is purchased at the expense of the continued ignorance of his fellow countrymen in the art of life. It is all very well to elaborate these grandiose schemes of Imperial domain, such as we heard from the hon. Gentleman opposite, but those schemes are founded upon the degradation of Englishmen. They show but scant sympathy with those who in these harsh times have to live with starvation, who are familiar with sorrow and anguish. Far remote, I fear, are the thoughts of statesmen who go forward with such proposals, who resist with such indignation any suggestion of withdrawal from these far-flung territories and refuse to devote our remaining resources to the maintenance of a proper standard of life among our own people. After all, the alternatives in this matter are very clear. You may have some disorder, you may have some suffering, you
may even have bloodshed in Iraq, but if we have to choose between two evils, it is better to risk disorder in Iraq than in a city like Manchester, and if you go on squandering the resources of this country and burdening industry with these colossal commitments, you are running some risk, if not a great risk, of a collapse of the finances of the country, bringing in its train infinite suffering and despair to millions of our fellow men. If we have to choose, it is better to have some disorder, to have chaos, if you like, among the nomadic tribes of the desert than to risk the final destruction of the finances of the country.

Lieut.-Colonel A. MURRAY: I wish to draw attention to the railways in Iraq, to which considerable reference was made in the Debate a. short time ago. My hon. and gallant Friend attempted in Committee on this Vote to justify the retention of the railways on the ground that they were a paying proposition. Considerable doubt was expressed at the time whether or not that was actually the case. Since that Debate took place I have addressed to the hon. Gentleman certain questions which were not reached and the answers have been handed to me a few minutes ago. One of the questions I asked was, how many trains a day are run on the average between Basra and Hillah and between Hillah and Basra. That is the line to which the hon. Gentleman alluded as a commercial proposition which was paying its way. The answer I have received is:
The printed time-table provides for one passenger train daily in each direction. I have no information as to goods trains or any extra trains, but I will inquire.
I ask the House whether a line which provides for one passenger train daily in each direction and perhaps a few goods trains, probably not more than two or three at the outside, can be said to be a commercial, paying proposition? Whatever decision the Cabinet may have come to with regard to the general position, so far as this railway is concerned, it would be in the interests of the taxpayers of this country if the Government would make up their minds to cut their losses right away. I take it my hon. and gallant Friend suggested that this railway was to be offered to the Government of Iraq at the price, of its original cost of construction. If we are to wait to obtain £3,000,000 or £4,000,000,
or whatever it was, from the Government of Iraq, we shall be waiting until doomsday. Not only shall we never obtain it, but it would not be in the interest of the Government of Iraq to give any such sum as that. I therefore urge on the hon. Gentleman that he should again review the whole position of this line in the interest of the British taxpayer, having in mind that the best thing the Government could do would be to cut its losses right away. I also asked the hon. Gentleman whether he would publish a balance sheet showing the annual expenditure and revenue for each year since 1918 of the railway from Basra to Hillah. These figures are, of course, eminently necessary if the House is to form any clear judgment at all on the question of this railway and its finance. The hon. Gentleman said in reply to my question:
I doubt whether separate figures for each year will be available for the Basra-Hillah section, which is a part only of the Basra-Bagdad line, but the High Commissioner will be asked to report and I will communicate with the hon. Member as soon as we receive his reply.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for acceding to my request to that extent, and as soon as these figures are available I hope he will publish them for the information of the House.
6.0 P.M.
There is another aspect of his question to which attention should be drawn, and that is with regard to the navigation of the River Tigris. That, of course, is inextricably bound up with the question of the continuance of the Basra and Bagdad line. I asked the hon. Gentleman
whether as the mandatory power the Government have maintained a monopoly for navigation on the River Tigris since 1918 and, if so, whether the monopoly agreement concluded with the Turkish Government in 1914 was ever formally ratified, and if not ratified, what is the existing position with regard to river navigation rights? 
The hon. Gentleman replied:
The answer to the first part, of the question is in the negative.
That is, the Government have not maintained a monopoly of the River Tigris. That is to say, that the navigation rights on the River Tigris are in direct competition with the railway line from Basra to Bagdad. He then says:
." When permission was given to a British steamship company in 1918 to resume busi-
ness in Iraq it was made a clear condition, which was accepted by the company, that nothing in the nature of a monopoly of navigational or other rights could be granted to them either then or hereafter. That is the position as it stands at present. I regret that language used by me in the Debate on the 1st March should have given rise to misapprehension on this point.
The whole House knew that my hon. Friend in that Debate, in using the language that he did, was not attempting to mislead the House. The House is grateful for the position being cleared up as he has cleared it up in the answer which he has given. That does not alter the fact, however, that the answer shows more clearly than ever that the task of making the Basra to Bagdad line a paying proposition is not only difficult but impossible. That brings me back to the suggestion which I made at the outset, that it would be much the best course from every point of view if the Government reviewed the whole position and made up their minds, here and now, to cut their losses.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Will the hon. and gallant Member explain what he means by the suggestion, "cutting our losses"? What does he suggest that we should do?

Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: What I suggest that we should do, is to remove everything that is removable from the railways and hand it over to anyone who will take it, if anyone can be found to take it and work it, which I very much doubt, thereby relieving the taxpayer of this country of all expenditure from this date on that railway line. I make the suggestion because I can see no possible advantage either to the Government of Iraq or to this country. If there be any advantage to the Government of Iraq, then it is for the Government of Iraq to pay. I can see no possible advantage to the Government of Iraq or to this country in spending a further single sou on this line from Basra to Bagdad. I hope the Government will review the whole situation in the light of the remarks that I have made.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: I looked forward to this Debate with very great interest, but the House has been disappointed at the course of the Debate. It has not been as we anticipated, a duel between the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George)
and the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Pringle). Between the National and the Free Liberals we are not having the duel to which we have been looking forward. I think it is regrettable that the case for Iraq and the case for the occupation of the oil fields has been left entirely to the hon. Member for Cleveland (Sir Park Goff) and that the House has been deprived of one side of the case which has not been stated properly. It is with the deepest regret that we on these benches see that the due" has been put off, and that the case against the Mosul oil fields has gone by the board. It was perhaps, almost cruel of my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. Pringle) to bring this Debate on now, just at a time when reunion is in the air. Alas, another postponement must inevitably follow this critical and crucial Debate.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Do I understand the hon. and gallant Member to be referring to the dissensions in the Emir Feisal's Cabinet?

Colonel WEDGWOOD: An apt illustration, Sir, but I trust that the dissensions in this prospective Cabinet will not be met in the same regrettable manner as were the dissensions in the Emir's Cabinet. Deportations in this country are confined to persons of Irish nationality. This Amendment has a bearing vital to the people of this country. The right hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith), as long ago as 1921, told the House of Commons that, since the Armistice, we had already spent £137,000,000 on Mesopotamia. Since then two more years have gone by, and in one year we spent £26,000,000 on Mesopotamia, and in this year we are spending £10,000,000 on Mesopotamia, plus an unknown liability for additional sums owing to the recent occupation of Mosul in order to meet the Turkish menace. This money has come out of the pockets of the taxpayers in this country. It is all very well for the hon. Member for Cleveland to say: "Do not mind my pocket, spend the money. It is all for the good of the British Empire." It is not the people who find the money in the first place who are really paying for this game. The people who are paying are the unemployed in this country. If you take money from industry in this country, if you deprive the taxpayers in this country of the possibility of buying
the goods they want, by taking their money from them, naturally they cannot buy them. That is not the end of the story. The end of the story is that the men who should be making these goods for the people who want the goods, but who are no longer able to afford to buy them, are thrown out of work. When we see to-day, not £137,000,000, but £174,000,000, being spent on Mesopotamia in order to make the Garden of Eden bloom again like the rose, what strikes me is not the futility of this waste of money, but the terrible results of such waste.
This is a question which affects the working classes of this country more directly than much of the legislation which comes before us. Every time we spend money in this way, unemployment is increased and the condition of trade in this country is made worse. This is about the last chance the taxpayer will have of protesting against this waste of money. We do not know what the Government's policy is. The only light that we get on the subject is given in this morning's papers, where we learn that, having consulted Sir Percy Cox, the Government has finally decided to carry on, on the old wait and see policy, for another five years. I do not know whether that is true. The Under-Secretary for the Colonies shakes his head. How are we to judge of the results of the consultation with Sir Percy Cox? Shall we know before we vote to-night 1 Shall we have some information as to what Sir Percy Cox's views are, and as to the views of the Cabinet upon Sir Percy Cox's views? Sir Percy Cox has been here for three weeks. The Committee been been sitting daily and he has been reporting to them. Shall we be told before we come to a decision to-night something of what appears in the paragraph in the newspapers, the inspiration of which, apparently, is doubtful? Whether that paragraph is inspired or uninspired, it states that the Cabinet have decided to put off evacuation and to continue the waste of money in Mesopotamia for another five years. We are entitled to be put in possession of the real facts of the case.
The right hon. Member for South Molton (Mr. Lambert) pointed out, very justly, that articles appearing in "The Times" are evidently written in the interests of the continued occupation of Iraq. Those articles show what the role
of the British in Iraq is to be, and gives a spectacle of this country in a steel frame within the administration of that country, which is being reorganised just when we thought, from the speeches of the Under-Secretary and of the Prime Minister, that the occupation was coming to an end as soon as the Turks would let us get out with dignity. This is our last opportunity for protest, because if the administration in Iraq digs itself in it will be increasingly difficult year by year to tear the roots of the occupation up and to get out. I want them to stop this leak of £10,000,000 a year, which is coupled with an indefinite liability. We want to know Sir Percy Cox's views and the Cabinet's views, and we are entitled to ask how the Under-Secretary squares this policy with the speeches which he has recently made in this House. When we have had Debates on Mesopotamia, and we have had about three a year since the Armistice, the hon. Member has taken part in all of them, and in every one of them his views have been identical with my own. We have been partners either in iniquity or in common sense. Now the Colonial Office, I presume against his wishes, is being committed to continued extravagant expenditure in the occupation of Mesopotamia. Five years more of it will mean a perpetuity of it, and the hon. Member must explain how it is that he continues to carry on that administration in view of his previously expressed views, and in view of the fact that no case has yet been made out for the financial side of the Mosul adventure. With respect to the railway question, we were given to understand that we were not going to spend another penny on that railway; that the expenditure had come to a sharp end.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Hear, hear.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: We were told that only the railways that were paying were going on working, that the whole thing was to be leased to the Iraq Government, and that we had a reversionary lien upon the undertaking to the tune of £5,000,000. If that be so, that would be more satisfactory than the proposal of the hon. and gallant Member for Kincardine (Lieut.-Colonel A. Murray), because we are in this position, that the only access to Bagdad is either by water or by rail. Some of our interesting friends out there might control the whole of the water
transport, and, if so, they would make it hot for Bagdad. It is just as well that we should have a rival means of access, in order to keep the freight rates down.

Mr. PRINGLE: Did not the hon. Gentleman to-day, in answer to a question, correct himself and say that there was no monopoly on the river?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Legal right.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: There is not very much difference between a legal monoply and an actual monoply. If somebody owns all the steamers there is not much chance of competition. If there was a real monopoly before, without there being a legal monopoly, let us preserve the railway if we can do so without its being any expense to us, in the interests of the people of Mesopotamia and of British trade in Mesopotamia. This railway is being handed over to Iraq. Are we handing over to Iraq all the other results of the wild oat Cabinet expenditure of the last five years? For instance, three years ago we spent one million pounds on buying land in Mesopotamia. We were never even told where the land was, and apparently the hon. Gentleman never heard of it until now. Whose land is that now? We spent at the same time about £1,300,000 on the military defences of Iraq barracks, and so on. Who takes over those things? Do they become the property of the Iraq Government? Who is taking over the Government buildings, and all the other results of our wasteful expenditure? Are they all being handed over to the Iraq Government? Or do we retain any lien on these capital assets—wasting though they are, that might mean something in future for the British taxpayer? I notice in the "Daily Herald" this morning a Keuter's telegram—[Laughter], I do not know the cause of this laughter. If it is in the "Herald" it is more likely to be true than if it is in any other paper. It is the only paper which we read. It states:
Five hundred cavalry supported by aeroplanes, presumably British, attacked the tribesmen in the Derband region of Northern Mesopotamia and inflicted heavy loss. Airmen are bombing villages and the people are flying to the hills.
We have been told over and over again by the Minister for Air that aeroplanes are never used in Mesopotamia for
collecting taxes. What are they used for? Here they are being used against tribesmen. We have heard, so far, of no Turkish trouble up there. Apparently they are the ordinary tribesmen of the country. What are the grounds on which aeroplanes and cavalry are used against these people? I cannot make out what they are used for. The suspicion (remains in my mind that they are used for punishing people who pay no taxes. Has the hon. Gentleman any information about this particular raid, and can he lay down any broad principles to guide, not only this House, but also these people who are using the aeroplanes in Mesopotamia, as to when they are to be used and not to be used, and what notice is to be given? It would be deplorable if our continued occupation of Mesopotamia or of the Mosul vilayet meant not only a financial loss to this country, but also a loss of honour in dealing with people who are not our subjects, but our allies, by having our airmen bombing them from the air.
It is bad enough in countries where we are the ordinary legitimate ministers of order, but in Iraq we are not in that position; we are allies of King Feisal; he is an independent monarch; we are working in conjunction with him. We have read of the horror with which England viewed the conduct of Warren Hastings in India in the eighteenth century. We do not want a repitition of that sort of thing; we do not want rival Mussulmans dealt with by our aeroplanes, under our soldiers' orders, in the interests of any native monarch in that country. For those reasons the hon. Gentleman should lay down clearly rules for the guidance of our soldiers in these bombing raids. Now that Mesopotamia is being run as an independent State this sort of business should stop altogther so far as British aeroplanes are concerned, and we should keep the Air Force for its legitimate purpose of fighting an enemy, and not use it for the illegitimate purpose of cowing a civilian population.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: As no hon. Member wishes to take part in this Debate and I have the right to make only one speech on the Report stage, I trust that the House will be able to come shortly to a decision on the Report stage of this Vote. We had a full day's discussion on the Committee stage of this Vote. That
discussion covered a very wide area, almost as wide as that which is covered this afternoon. Consequently I trust that the Division on the Report stage will be similar to the Division on the Committee stage. The main part of these particular Supplementary Estimates is for this railway. The larger amount of the money is, I want to make it clear, a final payment in connection with this railway. We are now cutting our losses. That is to say, we have made it clear to the Iraq Government that we are not going to provide one single penny of British taxpayers' money for continued maintenance or capital expenditure on this railway. We are handing over this railway to the Iraq Government. That is to say, we are handing over the working of it.

Mr. PRINGLE: But will they take it?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Yes, and they are going to continue to work it, and they are of opinion, and we are of opinion from the experience of this year, that the receipts from that railway can pay the ordinary working expenses, that is to say, the actual running costs, but that does not mean that they pay any interest on the capital.

Mr. PRINGLE: Is there any agreement between His Majesty's Government and the Iraq Government as to the terms on which the railway is to be handed over?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Yes.

Mr. PRINGLE: Can they be put before the House?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I will make inquiries, but it is understood clearly that the Iraq Government from the 31st March this year undertake full liability for any capital expenditure or any working expenses of this railway, and that the British taxpayer has finished as regards the railway. Then comes the question as to the possible sale of the railway. There is nothing about it on this Vote, but we are willing to sell the railway to the Iraq Government, or to consider an offer from anybody else, but we want to make it clear that neither to the Iraq Government nor to any syndicate shall we pay out of the British taxpayers' pocket, as was suggested by one concern which approached us, any guaranteed interest on capital.

Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: Does the British Government, after having handed
over the railway to the Iraq Government on the 31st March, still reserve to itself the right to sell that railway to someone else?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Yes. Obviously the syndicate would have, to make its own arrangements with the Iraq Government. It could only take over the working or allow the Iraq Government to work it. The capital invested in this railway is a different thing from the ordinary running. This is a bad moment to sell. If we sold now we should be selling at the very bottom of the market. This railway was built during the War. It was built for military purposes. A certain amount of adaptation has been done for commercial purposes; that is finished. We are of opinion that until we see what is going to happen in Mesopotamia, until we know what the future of the country is going to be, this is not the moment to press for the sale of the capital invested in the actual line, and the Iraq Government are taking over the working of the railway, and we shall have no further expenditure on that head.

Sir F. BANBURY: May I ask who would buy something which was handed over to somebody else on condition that they work it, with the natural sequence that any profit would go to the Iraq Government?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I presume that if anybody goes to buy this railway, he would only buy it on such terms as would enable him to get the profit.

Mr. WISE: If the railway is capitalised have the British Government the first charge on that capital?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: The railway belongs to us; it is our railway.

Mr. WISE: But you are handing it over to the Iraq Government. Is it capitalised?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: We are not handing over the capital concern. It will continue to be our railway, and the Iraq Government are to work it.

Sir F. BANBURY: It is not an unknown thing in England to hand over a railway to a company on consideration of their working it. This is practically hand-
ing over the railway to them, and they will take the profit, so that there will be nothing to sell to anyone else.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I agree that if there is any profit at the end of the next financial year the Iraq Government will take it, and that if there is a loss on it they will have to pay for it.

Mr. PRINGLE: Are we not liable for any deficiency of the Iraq Government? Consequently, if there is a deficiency on the Iraq Government arising from a deficiency on the railway, are we not liable?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: In future that is to be made perfectly clear. On this Estimate I cannot be drawn into a discussion of that question.

Captain W. BENN: May I ask—

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I cannot give way. I did not interrupt hon. Members when they were speaking. I will make the thing as clear as I can make it. We are not going to spend any more money on this railway. We are going to dispose of the railway as best we can. The other element of the Estimate is the element of defence. I must confess that I failed entirely to follow the argument of the hon. Member for Harrow (Mr. Mosley), who suggested that, because Lord Curzon at Lausanne got all that we wanted from the Turks, we should immediately withdraw all our troops from Constantinople and Palestine and Mesopotamia, and should say: "Oh, we have got all the points for which we stood out. We can quit the area, quit the negotiations, and allow the Allies to fight their own battles by themselves. "That would be an impossible position; it would be absolutely contrary to the whole spirit in which the negotiations with Turkey have been conducted by the British Government. I think it would be impossible and improper, while the Turkish negotiations are still continuing or being resumed, and while we have every hope that they will be resumed with success, immediately to begin evacuating troops and the rest of it from the area.

Mr. MOSLEY: If the hon. Gentleman challenges me, may I point out to him that I did not in any way say that we should let down the French or abandon the general position in the Lausanne negotiations? I was only giving away our own position. I suggested that we, hav-
ing carried our point in regard to Mosul, were at liberty to withdraw from Mesopotamia.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: The hon. Gentleman clearly has not read the Agreement with the Turks with regard to Mosul. The whole position is that the status quo there shall be preserved until either Turkey and Great Britain come to an agreement about it, or until the Council of the League of Nations has done so. That is in the Agreement. In addition to that, you cannot begin moving troops about an area directly you have won the particular point for which you have been contending in negotiations. The Italians and the French would have very just cause for complaint if we immediately did what the hon. Member demanded, namely, that we began immediately to withdraw our aeroplanes and the rest from Mosul. That was the constructive proposal which the hon. Gentleman put before us this afternoon. Frequently, in taking part in Debates in the past, I have criticised hon. Gentlemen and even Ministers who put up a nine-pin merely for the sake of knocking it down again. That is exactly what the hon. Member for Harrow did this afternoon. In spite of what the Prime Minister said in the Debate on the Address, certainly in spite of what I said on the Committee stage of this Vote, he assumes a decision by the Cabinet of this country to stay for all time in Mesopotamia for Imperialistic reasons. The whole of his speech was based on the assumption that a decision had been come to permanently to occupy Mesopotamia and to continue what he called an Anglo-Indian administration there. No such decision has been reached The Cabinet Committee has not yet reported to the Cabinet, and the statements which appeared in the "Pall Mall Gazette" yesterday caused considerable amusement at the meeting of the Iraq Committee, at which I was present yesterday afternoon.
The reports of Cabinet Committees are not communicated to the Press and are not published. I believe it is the invariable custom not to publish such reports. Obviously, the only thing that will be published will be the Cabinet decision on the report of that Committee, when it has been received and considered by the Cabinet. I shall not state it; the Prime Minister will state it. I am not a Mem-
ber of the Cabinet, and it is clear that I cannot respond to the demand made by hon. Members this afternoon by saying what the final decision of the Government is. It cannot be published until the final stage of the peace negotiations with Turkey. The right hon. Member for South Molton (Mr. Lambert) was perfectly fair in what he said. I wish that the hon. Member for Harrow had adopted the same line, instead of appealing to passion and prejudice about the myopic vision of statesmen in neglecting the poor children and the unemployed of this country and thinking only of the desert. That is all a ninepin which anyone could knock down. I am surprised that anyone possessed of the eloquence and gifts of the hon. Member for Harrow should demean himself by indulging in that sort of rhodomontade. The right hon. Gentleman for South Molton said, "Are you quite sure that nothing is being done now in Iraq which is going to make it more difficult to clear out in the event of the decision of the Government?" Nothing of that kind is being done. The extract which the right hon. Gentleman quoted merely defines for quite temporary purposes, and defines in a direction which he will approve of, the relations between British officials employed in Iraq and the Arab Government of Iraq. I know that in this House I have criticised those relations in the past. I have criticised the virtually executive authorities which British officials have exercised in duality with Arab officials of the Arab Government. That has come to an end. The extract referred to defines clearly the respective spheres in which the British officials employed by the Iraq Government and the Arab officials employed by that Government are to work. It is in the direction of giving more authority and responsibility to the native officials of Iraq. That is the policy and it will be pursued.

Mr. LAMBERT: Is it dependent on the Treaty?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: For the moment everything is dependent on the Treaty, because the Treaty was signed by the late Government and by King Feisal. Therefore, we have to proceed on the basis of the Treaty. But that Treaty is not ratified, and, as the Prime Minister said, it will not be ratified until this House has had a full opportunity of discussing it
and any subsidiary agreements and any alternative that may commend itself to the Cabinet; and even so, this House cannot be asked to ratify it until a Constituent Assembly has been formed in Iraq, and that cannot take place until after the Turkish Question is settled. So it is purely an interim arrangement that we have to carry on, pending the final issue of peace with Turkey and the final decision of the Government on their future policy in Iraq. In that connection I ask right hon. and hon. Members to remember that, even if we decide to evacuate Mesopotamia, let us do it with a proper appreciation of the point of view of King Feisal and the Arab Government. It would be very improper to come to this House and say, "We are going to clear out at once." You have to enter into negotiations; you have to consider the financial position of this Government, after exploring the military side and the international side of it—you have to put the British Government's appreciation of the situation before King Feisal. It is only fair to him and to his Government. We are reducing our commitments very substantially every day. I think that the Prime Minister has made that perfectly clear. Both financially and militarily our object is to reduce our commitments in every way that is possible and consistent with our honour. So we have to carry the Iraq Government with us.
The hon. Member for Penistone (Mr Pringle) raised the question of defence. He said in effect, "This independent State cannot stand alone until it can provide for its own defence." I agree entirely. Our policy is that it should be an independent Arab State as a member of the League of Nations, and that the mandate should be wound up as soon as it is an independent Arab State. That is our policy. It is necessary that Iraq should as soon as possible provide for its own defence. Consequently we have to enter into a series of negotiations to insure that it has a fair chance of providing for its own defence. There are two forces—the so-called Arab levies and the Arab Army. The hon. Member raised a point of importance to which I should reply, as the Arab levies are included in some element of this Supplementary Estimate. The so-called Arab levies,
which have been and are being maintaned under British officers, are an Imperial charge—a charge on us and not on Iraq. They are for the most part not Arabs; they are mainly Assyrians, and the reason why more energy and I think more money has been expended upon them is to be found in the special circumstances of the northern frontier of Mosul, where these people live. They are recruited in their own homes, they are a local force and they are admittedly, in the main, a Christian force under British officers. The Minister for Air will bear me out when I say they have been brought to a high pitch of efficiency in a remarkably short time, which is most commendable not only to the British officers who have trained them but also to the Assyrians and other local populations concerned. The reason why that effort was made was because of possible threats to the Mosul frontier. There might have been an invasion and it was therefore necessary to provide the Air Force up there with local support as efficient and as capable of being rapidly collected as possible. When there is peace with Turkey and when that menace is removed, it is obviously in the interests of everybody that the whole relationship of this Christian force living up in the north of Mosul, with the growing Arab army should be reviewed and reconsidered, and that will be done. As I say even at this moment it is being done.
I must go back to say something more on the broad question. Some hon. Members like to search round for various imaginary reasons as to why we went to Iraq, and why we are there to-day. Most of the reasons produced this afternoon are quite imaginary. The reason we went to Mesopotamia was to defeat Turkey in the War. That is perfectly plain. Do hon. Members who have spoken not admit that the Arab representations at Lausanne—which I think convinced the world—are perfectly overwhelming; that the Arab claim to Mosul and the district around is not answerable; that Mosul is ethnically, geographically and economically an essential part of Mesopotamia. If Iraq is to be an Arab national State, Mosul will be in it. That is the view which the Arab Government takes, and the view which they urged His Majesty's Government to represent at the Lausanne Conference, supported by France and by all our
Allies. I do not think any hon. Member of the House would say that we should go back upon the Arabs in a matter of this kind. We went to Mesopotamia to attack the enemy, just as we went to Gallipoli. That is why we went to Mesopotamia.
We fought the Turks, and we defeated them, and in the process we, with our Allies, entered into obligations, and the point at issue is whether you can, when the War is over, say, "We honour this obligation, but we will not honour that obligation." You cannot do that sort of thing. You have got to endeavour, to the best of your ability and as long as you possibly can, to carry out the pledges which you have made. One hon. Member said, "Why do you not let down the Arabs now, because you let down the Armenians?" Two blacks do not make a white, and we do want if we can to carry out the obligations we have entered into. What is the main obligation? The main obligation into which we entered goes back further than the late Coalition Government. The main obligation was undertaken by the Government of which the right hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith) was Prime Minister and Viscount Grey was Foreign Secretary. I think it is perfectly clear from the whole course of the negotiations with King Hussein and the agreement with the French and the then Russian Government which dealt with the whole of this Arab question—it is perfectly clear that those obligations were entered into by the Liberal Government of that day, and I suspect that some members of the Liberal party—I must except the right hon. Member for South Molton—but some hon. Members, such as the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy), regard Mesopotamia as a good thing out of which to make party capital. With that attitude I must confess I have very little sympathy.
I believe we shall be able to reduce the burden that has fallen on our people, on account of Mesopotamia, to vanishing point within a very reasonable distance of time, if we get peace with Turkey and friendship with Turkey. Everything turns on that. If we can get friendship with Turkey then the whole question of our Eastern commitments assumes quite a different aspect. I ask the House to support the decision come to by a very
substantial majority during the Committee stage of this Vote, on the ground that to refuse to support the decision then arrived at, would be to say, in effect, "Here and now, whatever may be the interest of the Arab Government and the Arab population of Mesopotamia, whatever may be the desirability now that peace negotiations with Turkey are being resumed, of maintaining a solid front with our Allies, we are determined that you should clear out, bag and baggage, from Mesopotamia now." I do not believe the House is willing to do that, but that is all a vote undoing the decision of last week would amount to. I appeal with confidence to the House to give the Government a fair chance of considering in full detail their future policy in Mesopotamia and announcing it when peace is signed with the Turkish representatives. We hope that peace will be signed. It is very important to the British Empire. People are apt to think there are no British interests in the Middle East. There are. It is vital to our communications, not only with India, but with Australia. The East is across our path. The line Port Said to Aden is the neck of the British Empire. Anything that happens to affect the situation in the Middle East vitally affects the future of the whole British Empire, and we cannot look at it from an outside point of view.

Mr. WALLHEAD: Make friends with Russia!

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I think it is a question of Russia not making friends with us. They have definitely stated that they will not make friends with any capitalistic State. That, however, is obviously outside the subject. I urge the House to remember that we cannot discuss the Middle East as if it were purely a question of the Arabs and the Turks. Take the French position in Smyrna. The whole thing must hang together, and we have no right to put ourselves bag and baggage out of Mesopotamia at this moment. I appeal with confidence to the House to support the Vote which the Committee gave the other night.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I had not intended to take any part in the discussion of this question, but the course of the Debate has been different from the line pursued previously. There is nothing more barren and futile than to answer
arguments which were advanced three weeks ago, and I shall certainly not take up the time of the House in doing so. I rise for a totally different purpose. I rise to press the Government to give us information which will enable the House of Commons to express an intelligent judgment with a full knowledge of the facts. The hon. Member who has just spoken told us that at the present moment the Government are not in a position to declare their policy with regard to Mesopotamia, and that it is under consideration by a Cabinet Committee. As far as I am concerned, I accept that answer fully. It is a very important matter in reference to the British Empire and to our relations with other countries. It is a very important matter so far as our position in the East is concerned, and I think they are entitled to ask for all the time that is necessary in order to determine what their attitude is going to be. They have also asked for a postponement of the discussion on the whole issue on the ground that the Turkish Treaty is still sub judice.
I understand that there is a meeting in London this week to consider some very important problems. In these circumstances, I do not propose to take any part in the discussion on the general question of Mesopotamia. That is no reason why we should not press the Government to give us information. The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies said we were in Mesopotamia in pursuance of obligations entered into by preceding Governments. That is true, but how is the House of Commons to decide the issues finally without knowing what those obligations are. The time will come when the Prime Minister will announce to the House the policy of the Government. Then, undoubtedly, there must be a Debate upon that decision. But how can the House of Commons discuss the merits of that decision without knowing what are the pledges and the obligations? These obligations have been published in Russia. The present Russian Government published the whole of the papers. Some of these papers have been published in the newspapers in this country. They were published, I believe by the "Daily Herald,"

Mr. LANSBURY: Partly.

7.0 P.M.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I think the "Manchester Guardian" gave publicity to most of them. They have been published in Paris; I think they have been published in Italy, but upon that subject I am not certain. But they have been published in Paris, they have been published in this country, and they were published in Russia in full detail. I think if anyone cares to look at the back numbers either of the "Daily Herald" or of the "Manchester Guardian," he will find that the Papers have been summarised, at any rate, there. Why should the House of Commons have withheld from it information upon something which is vital to enable it to come to a conclusion on this important question? Obligations are an element. I do not mean to say there might not be conditions under which the House of Commons should come to the conclusion that this country could not afford to carry out obligations that it had undertaken through previous Governments—a very serious decision for a country to take; a very serious decision for a country to announce, that it could not afford to discharge its pledges—but, at any rate, let us know what those pledges are. The hon. Gentleman who has just spoken said that they were obligations entered into by the Liberal Government, of which my right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith) was the head. They were, as a matter of fact, initiated by that Government, and were concluded by the first Coalition Government, of which my right hon. Friend was also the head. They were concluded, I think, in 1916. I have got the full details: I have checked the information from the "Manchester Guardian" by information which I have, and that is the case.

Mr. WALLHEAD: Why did not you publish them?

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: If anybody had pressed us to publish them, we certainly should not have had the slightest objection; quite the reverse. Why should we? We were carrying out those pledges; in fact, everything contained in those papers would have fortified the policy we were adopting. We certainly had no objection, but I never heard anyone press us to publish the documents. I think my right hon. Friend said that, the only pledge given was a pledge to found an inde-
pendent Arab State. That is not quite so. The pledge given was to found and uphold an independent Arab State—a very different thing. It was given, originally, in May, 1915, just before the formation of the first Coalition Government. The negotiations were afterwards concluded by the first Coalition Government, and the actual words are these:
That Prance and Great Britain are prepared to recognise and uphold an independent Arub State or a confederation of Arab States in the areas A and B. 
"A" was, I think, French, and "B" was British. These documents went far beyond that. There was an undertaking given that Acre and Haifa should become British. There was an undertaking given that we were to have priority of the right of enterprise and of loans in Mesopotamia. There was an undertaking given that we were to be allowed to make a railway between Haifa and Bagdad, and that we were to have special tariff rights for ourselves in Mesopotamia. All these things indicated, and I could give a good deal more which make it quite clear, that the intention at that time was not merely to conquer Mesopotamia and hand it over to the Arabs, but to conquer Mesopotamia, found an Arab State, uphold it by British support, and have predominant rights of exploitation there—that was the document.

Mr. PRINGLE: Will the right hon. Gentleman inform us from which document he is quoting?

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Certainly. It is the document of 16th May, 1916, signed by Sir Edward Grey, as he then was. It is Sir Edward Grey's document. Before the House of Commons can adjudicate on that, we really ought to have the whole of these documents. What conceivable objection can there be to their production?

Mr. ASQUITH: Hear, hear!

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I am glad my right hon. Friend agrees. There was a good deal of correspondence between Sir Edward Grey—I am using his name at that particular time—who was then Foreign Secretary, and the French Government; between Sir Edward Grey and the Russian Government; and between. Sir Edward Grey and the Italian Government. The whole thing was a plan for the partition of Turkey.

Mr. MOSLEY: The obligation to the Arabs!

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I am coming to the obligation to the Arabs. The obligation to the Arabs was an obligation to found a State for thorn, and to uphold it. If my hon. Friend examines the Papers— I hope he will see them—he will find that the reason given by Sir Edward Grey was that it was desirable, for strategic reasons, to detach the Arabs from the Turks. The Arabs, upon the strength of the pledges we gave them, upon the strength of the obligations we entered into, put their forces into the field. It is all very well to despise that now; at that time it was vital. It is all very well, after the event, to say, "What are these pledges!" as if a pledge given by a great Empire were a scrap of paper. It was a pledge given, in return for which we received invaluable military services. I remember perfectly well at that time how invaluable it was. The Arabs attacked the lines of communication. They embarrassed the Turks; they engaged in military operations in which, owing to their very light and mobile formation, it would have been quite impossible for us to have engaged. They cut in behind the lines and vanished into the desert. Our heavier formations could not have done that. The ultimate overthrow of the Turks was very largely attributable to the fact that the Arabs co-operated with Lord Allenby in the final attack, and made it almost impossible for the Turks to bring up reinforcements at the crucial moment. This was part of the arrangement with the Arabs. I say that these documents show that. I do not ask the House of Commons to accept my account; I ask the Government to print and publish them. Is it really conceivable—when you come to debate a matter of this moment, which undoubtedly affects obligations entered into by us; which affects our interest, because, undoubtedly, there is money being expended upon them—that we should not have information which the Soviet representatives have, which the readers of the "Daily Herald" have got, and which the readers of the "Manchester Guardian" have got?

Mr. KIRKWOOD: What about the "Forward"?

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I dare say that the "Forward" had the same informa-
tion, but, at any rate, here is the House of Commons, which has to judge upon all these things, and we have not got the Papers. I ask the Prime Minister to give an undertaking that these documents shall be published. I do not ask him to give documents that will interfere in the least with the negotiations between the Turks and ourselves now. The Turks have got those documents. You may depend upon it that their Soviet friends have furnished them with full copies, or even the "Daily Herald" has supplied it. Therefore, they have got it. There is nothing there that can embarrass the Government in their present-day negotiations. If I were pressing the right hon. Gentleman to bring the story down to recent days and the last three or four months, I agree that the time has not come for publishing the documents until the story is complete. I hope that they will be published then, and if anyone presses it, I guarantee to second it when the time comes. There can be no objection to the previous documents being published. I appeal to my right hon. Friend to give an undertaking to publish the documents which constitute the obligations which were entered into with the Arabs, and with our Allies; the obligations which are responsible for our being in Mesopotamia, and which we are attempting to carry out, so that the House of Commons should have an opportunity of judging the policy of the Government in Mesopotamia in the light of the whole of the facts.

Mr. ASQUITH: I am not going—I think I should be grossly out of order if I did—to take this opportunity of entering into the historical matters to which my right hon. Friend referred I shall be very glad to have the opportunity, if and when the occasion arises, to go into the thing in detail and with the utmost confidence that every statement I have made, and every recommendation I have offered this House in regard to Mesopotamia during the last four years, is absolutely consistent with the pledges given by the Governments of the past This, however, is not the occasion to do that, and for the very good reason, which my right hon. Friend himself will admit, that we have not got the documents.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Hear, hear!

Mr. ASQUITH: They have never been presented. I am very glad to see that my right hon. Friend is now alive to the inconvenience to which that course of withholding all these documents has exposed the House of Commons, and which has crippled their opportunities of forming an accurate judgment on the situation. I confess I wish he had shown the same sympathy toward the requirements of public duty, and the respect due from the Government to the House of Commons in the years that have since elapsed.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I want to remind my right hon. Friend that I was never asked for them.

Mr. PRINGLE: Every year.

Mr. ASQUITH: Never asked for them! It ought to have been the spontaneous act of the Government! They knew the production of those documents was necessary to form a judgment and to satisfy the conscience of the country. Surely, it should have been the spontaneous action of a patriotic Government, anxious not only to receive—as they did receive, in unstinted measure—but to deserve the confidence of the House of Commons.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: Why did you not do it?

Mr. ASQUITH: I never had the opportunity. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why did you not ask for them?"] It was unnecessary to ask for them. I am very glad to find myself in hearty agreement with my right hon. Friend. It is a good omen for what is called Liberal reunion, and I say, without any arriere pensée of any kind, that I am most anxious to see these documents, and that the public should see them. I join most cordially in the appeal which my right hon. Friend has made to the Prime Minister, that the House of Commons should be put in possession of this most useful and necessary information.

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Bonar Law): I do not think it is possible for me to add anything to the satisfaction with which the House of Commons has listened to these two most interesting speeches. They are, as my right hon. Friend has said, an obvious pledge of that Liberal reunion which is so much talked about. I think it is quite obvious that the House of Commons should have all
the information possible before dealing with this subject. As regards the Sykes-Picot agreement, in spite of what my right hon. Friend has said, I think we must obtain the sanction of the French Government before we publish it. As regards other communications with the Arabs, my Noble Friend the Colonial Secretary stated in the House of Lords the other day that some of these pledges were contained in documents which it would not be wise to publish. The House knows the question of order in this matter, but he promised to look into them, and I promise now to look carefully into these questions, and to lay before the House of Commons everything that can be laid which materially affects the question.

Mr. CHARLES ROBERTS: I would ask the Prime Minister, if he is going to publish these documents, that we should at last have the documents about the relations between our Government and the Greek Government, in reference to the attack on Smyrna, and I want also to ask the Prime Minister, as this Sykes-Picot agreement has been referred to, whether it is not the case that the King of the Hedjaz was fully informed about these documents at the time, even if the House of Commons was not informed. I happen to have with me the actual statement which was made when he inquired about the, matter, when the documents were published by the Bolsheviks in 1917. He applied for an explanation, and he received the following answer from the British Government through the High Commissioner in Cairo. He was told:
The Bolsheviks found in Petrograd the Foreign Office record of all the conversations and the provisional understanding—not the formal treaty—between Britain, France, and Russia, made early in the War to prevent difficulties between the Powers in prosecuting the War with Turkey. Either from ignorance or malice, this document was distorted from its original purpose, Its stipulations were omitted regarding the consent of the native populations and safeguarding their interests, and the fact was ignored that the subsequent outbreak and success of the Arab revolt and the withdrawal of Russia had for a long time past created a wholly different situation. 
Under these circumstances, the King of the Hedjaz, at all events, knew all about these documents. He had his explanation, and he joined in giving us his valued support in spite of these documents, with which he was fully
acquainted. I think that is a material point. May I say how much I welcome the statement of the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) in reference to the keeping of pledges, for I am bound to say that this is material? It does bear upon the fact that we have not even to-day, five or six years after the Armistice, obtained peace with Turkey, and that if his pledge of January, 1918, had been kept, if there had not been a distinct infraction of that definite pledge, a pledge which he himself described as a deliberate pledge—for he said:
We gave a solemn pledge, and they accepted it, and they are disturbed at the prospect of our not abiding by it. 
(He was referring to the Indian Mussulmans)—if he had kept that pledge, given in January, 1918, we should have been able to obtain peace with Turkey, and we should long ago have been in a position to have cleared up the whole situation in Mesopotamia.
To-day, if we are still unable to press the Government to give us an exact date, it is very largely because the right hon. Gentleman forgot that solemn pledge and broke it in the negotiations that led up to the Treaty of Sèvres and the Tripartite Agreement. I think that on him, and on his infraction of that deliberate pledge, lies a vast responsibility for the fact that we have not been able to obtain peace with Turkey long ago, and for the disturbance of and the injury to our whole relations with the Islamic world, which knows that that pledge has been broken. They have felt it most deeply, and I think it is impossible for anyone who has seen the documents, as I have, to deny that that infraction of a deliberate pledge, given by him when he was Prime Minister, has had a most deplorable effect on the whole relations of this country with Turkey and the East.

Mr. PRINGLE: Are we to understand, that the promise of the Prime Minister in regard to documents includes all pledges, agreements and Ministerial statements in relation to the partition of Turkey? The whole question is bound up together. Are we not to understand that the agreement with France and Russia included more than Mesopotamia, and that there were Asia Minor and Thrace and other interests concerned? Consequently, unless we have the whole
of the documents, we cannot judge of their full importance and effect.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member has exhausted his right to speak. He can only ask a question.

Mr. LANSBURY: I wish to say one or two words on the question of papers, and I do so with very great deference to the hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who have been discussing this matter, because they know much more about diplomacy than ever I shall know. I want, however, to point out to the House that it is some years ago since these treaties, these secret arrangements, were first published. All of us who had a hand in publishing them in this country were all the time under a threat of going to prison for doing so. Certainly, when I took the responsibility of publishing them in what was then the "Weekly Herald," I expected the next morning after the publication to be hauled off to prison for so doing. I was, however, strengthened in what I did by the fact that the editor of the "Manchester Guardian"—supposed to be a much more respectable paper than I was editing—in a public-spirited manner took the risk of publishing them. [An HON. MEMBER: "Where did you get them from?"] Where they were. I did not get them from anywhere else. They were published by the Bolshevist Government, together with a whole lot of other private documents, and I think the whole world owns a debt of gratitude to the Bolshevist Government for publishing those secret treaties, because we now know that the War was not waged on behalf of little Belgium, but was waged for the purpose of carving up the East. No one who has read these secret documents can get away from that.
That, however, is not what I got up to say—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"]—although if I am going to be taunted, I shall probably say a good many other things, but I have got up to ask that the Prime Minister should publish the whole of those documents. The War is over, years have passed since the conclusion of the War, it is time the people of this country knew officially what it was that this country was engaged in doing, in concert with its Allies, in regard to the War. It ought to be known in the country that one part of the secret arrangement was to give Constantinople to the Russians,
and all this talk about the freedom of the Straits would have been of no effect whatever if the Bolshevist Revolution had not saved you from the Czardom across the Straits. All this talk that we have heard about wanting to keep open that narrow waterway would have gone by the board if the Czardom had remained in Russia, and I think it is time that these facts were put before the general public in a wholehearted sort of way, so that we may know what it was that the British Government was driven to agree to in order successfully to prosecute the War.
The other thing I got up to ask about was the bombing of unarmed villages. The Under-Secretary for the Colonies made a very able defence, if I may say so, of his position, but ho sat down without having said one word about the bombing of these villages. I think somebody in this House ought to stand up and tell us why it is that our country has fallen so low as to use aeroplanes, and all the kind of weapons that are carried by aeroplanes, in order to bomb people who cannot bomb back again. When the War was on I lived in East London, as I live now, and we were visited nearly every night with these infernal machines. When they first came, nobody thought this country ought to use bombs and aeroplanes against open cities and civilians. The Archbishops and the Bishops at last came to the conclusion that you might, in the nature of reprisals, use this kind of weapon against your enemies, but nobody in those days thought it was right to bomb open cities and civilians unless your enemy first attacked your defenceless citizens. You called the Germans Huns because they commenced doing that, and I want to know from the Air Minister whether he and his Department are Huns now. whether we are to look on them instead of the Germans as the lineal descendants of the Huns. No one can stand up and say that the people in those villages are of less value than the people in the East End of London. I know there is a sort of feeling that a coloured person is of less value than a white person, but I do not think so. I think you are baby killers, and inhuman baby killers, whether you kill a black baby or a white baby. I do not see any difference. I think that one is a crime and the other is a crime. I do not know whether I shall ever have a chance of getting a clear vote on a
matter of this kind, but if I went into the Lobby alone, I would go alone against using this kind of weapon against unarmed people.
I am against using weapons of this kind under any circumstances, but I think it is sheer barbarism to be using them as they are admittedly being used in Mesopotamia. When I read that the enterprise was very successful, it reads exactly like the messages which came from Berlin during the War, after the bombardment of the East End of London, and I cannot understand the mental make-up of men and women who cannot see that the War has left us beggared as far as principles are concerned in these matters. If you meant all that you said about the German Kaiser and his army, whatever can those unhappy people in Mesopotamia be thinking of you? As I listened to the hon. Member, apparently we are there partly for oil. He denies that. At any rate, he said we are there for the good of the Arabs, plus keeping the road safe to Australia. We are also to help the Arabs to a higher civilisation. Does he not remember that Feisal stood up at the Conference in Paris and told them that he represented a civilisation which existed long before the civilisation for which we stand had ever been dreamt of? You are going there now, apparently, to take the blessings of our civilisation, and you are taking it with bomb and aeroplane, and all the very latest weapons of destruction. I could not keep my seat to-night, and not get up to protest against that, and say that I think the British House of Commons and the British people ought to be ashamed of any Government or any Department that treats these unhappy people in these out of the way parts of the world in this sort of way.

Captain HAY: I rise to support the words of the hon. Member who has just sat down. Like him, I also feel that I could not sit here all the time without entering my protest against the use of the aeroplane in Mesopotamia against unarmed people. To begin with, I would point out that the plane, and the bomb dropped from it, are not instruments of precision. I was never in London during the War while it was being bombed, but I understand that, though the bombing was carried out by efficient German airmen, they did not, so far as I know, on
any single occasion strike the target at which they were aiming. We could imagine that those men, when they came over London, would aim at the War Office, the Admiralty, and the Houses of Parliament, and they were helped by the fact that the features of the city are well marked, particularly by the windings of the river, and yet we know that, in spite of all those helps, they never struck anything they were really trying to strike. In Mesopotamia, where the features are not well marked, it must always be a matter of the highest difficulty for the airmen to find the target, and even if we assume that our airmen are capable of finding a target under those conditions, there is one thing they cannot do, and that is to guarantee that they can strike the thing they wish to strike. That is the inhuman part of all this bombing. Assuming that they are able to pick up their targets—and in a country which is devoid of rivers, or well-marked features, that must always be a matter of the greatest difficulty—then they must be able to strike the target, and I defy the Air Minister, or any airman in the House, to say that it is possible, say, from the height to which a rifle bullet will go, to strike the thing you are aiming at, because the practical difficulties are so great. The airman can never be quite sure of his height from the ground, or if he is rising or falling, and all the instruments that he uses are dependent on the fact that he knows his height and his course, so that when the bomb goes, he has only a very approximate idea where it is going to strike.
I say it is a wrong thing, it is a foul thing for any British man to drop bombs on what are, to him, merely small shadows running across the sand. He knows quite well he will strike something, but whether it is a cow, a baby, or a man who has refused to pay taxes, he does not know. What I want to stress to-night is the moral effect upon our young men. What kind of men must they be; what kind of men must they turn into, after they have played fast at striking helpless things without any chance of being struck back? During the War we said a lot of hard things about the Germans, but we can say at least that the German was a man, that, if he hammered us, he himself stood up to the hammering he got from us, and so there was a real give-and-take, and, no matter who won the War, or who lost
the War, we could always respect each other from the military point of view. But what kind of mind are you generating in young men who drop heavy bombs from absolute safety, not knowing whom they are going to strike? We are piling up for ourselves in the Near East, as well as the Far East, a heavy bill which our children or grandchildren will have to pay. I think I am quite right in saying that one of the results of the War is that the moral prestige of Britain, which has been fairly high in the past, has been lowered all over the Eastern world. I care not from where you go, Shanghai, Singapore or Mesopotamia, I say that our prestige has fallen, because these men of colour see that, while we preached great things during the War, we are not content to carry them out. It is not sufficient that we call out against the Germans for using gas, as they did at Ypres in 1915. Our outcry against the use of gas is only valid and moral so long as we also are unwilling to use gas against people who have no masks. We used gas in the beginning of 1919 in Murmansk, and so our hypocrisy is proved to the world.
I want to ask the House to-night to declare that in Mesopotamia the plane shall not be used at all, unless against people who are able to declare war boldly against us, and that our airmen shall not be allowed to drop a single bomb unless they can guarantee that they can strike the enemy, and not kill helpless women and children. Like the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, I am surprised at the mental make-up of hon. Gentlemen opposite who can discuss with a smile or a sneer, or with absolute satisfaction, the dropping of those terrible instruments of destruction on helpless women and children, forgetting that, after all, murder is murder, and that, whether those things are paid back to us or not, they will certainly be remembered against our children. I would ask to-night, not only for the sake of the inhabitants of Mesopotamia, those people who carried on before we went there, and those people who can carry on after we have gone from there, but for the morale of our young men, that these airmen shall not day in and day out strike helpless beings. What kind of preparation is dropping bombs from a great height on helpless people for warfare against an enemy equally strong and skilful? The idea of the War
Office no doubt, is that those young men are kept in training. They are not. They are taught to be cowards. One day they may have to face an enemy in the field, and not a black woman or a black child, and then their training in striking helpless beings will not stand them in good stead. I stand up to-night to ask this House, Have we sunk so low, after having lost so many brave men in the War, that in 1923 we are compelled to use the bomb, the most terrible instrument of warfare, against unprotected and inoffensive women and children in Mesopotamia?

Mr. WALLHEAD: I rise to back up the appeal of the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Pringle) for the full publication of papers relating to the Near and the Middle East. I think that as this Debate has proceeded, the statement made by the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) indicates that there is an urgent need for widespread knowledge on these particular questions. There seems to be a slight divergence between the statement of the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies and the statement made by the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs. The Under-Secretary, in putting forward his ease, deprecated the idea expressed from these benches that there is some material basis for our present position in Mesopotamia. He wants to deny the implication that we are there for the purpose of exploiting Mesopotamia for its riches in oil or in any other material. I would remind him that the Sykes-Picot agreement was drawn up between this country, France and Russia, and the various documents which have been drawn up expressly specified that we had the exclusive right, of exploitation of those territories. If we are there for exploitation, I take it we are there for the exploitation of the raw material, the hidden riches which are there, whether they are of a mineral, agricultural or liquid, or semi-liquid character in the nature of oil.
There are also one or two statements bearing on this question which it is germane to remember. I believe it was the right hon. Gentleman for Carnarvon Boroughs who told the country on one occasion that Mosul is a very rich country, that there is oil there, and that, if we did not go there, somebody else would. That seems to me to have some real bearing
on the case at issue, and when we are told with some amount of heat by the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies that we are not there for oil, I would remind him that gentlemen who have occupied even higher positions than he has yet occupied—I hope he may occupy them on some future occasion—have told us upon rare authority that we are there because otherwise others might be there, and that Mosul is rich in oil. There are other questions upon which we also want some information. I think we ought to have the papers relating to the question of Armenia. The question of Armenia is a very important question indeed.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I would remind the hon. Member that this is a Vote for railways in Mesopotamia.

Mr. PRINGLE: This has been discussed already in Debate.

Mr. WALLHEAD: I will confine myself to this question of the defence of Mesopotamia. I hold, and there are a good number of Members on these benches who hold, that we are in Mesopotamia because there is something to be got in Mesopotamia. My opinion is this. If there are people who desire to exploit the riches of Mesopotamia, if it is true, as the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) has told us it is, that Mosul is rich in oil, and that somebody is there for the purpose of exploiting that oil, those people should be taxed, and heavily taxed, for the protection that they demand, and the taxpayer of this country should escape. I deny the right of international financiers, or groups of international financiers, to make their exploitations a burden upon nations. They should take the same risks in international exploitations that the private trader takes in a national trade. They should not be able to put the cost of their international exploitations on the country. This oil which we are getting from Mesopotamia, whatever its value may be, is the dearest oil that is burned in this country. You have not only to take into account the actual cost of the oil itself, but you must add to every gallon you get a proportion of the cost of the maintenance of an Army in Mesopotamia. You must add to it, as well, the blood that was shed in the obtaining of the power to make the exploitation possible. It is
expensive oil when you look at it from that point of view. I am one of those who say, that before this question is finally settled by the Government, we should have at our disposal all the facts of the case. If there has been despicable work done by international agreements, either by one Government or another, the country has a right to know of it. The country has a right to know to what it has been committed behind its back, and the kind of burden it is called upon to bear. The commitments which have been entered into are being carried on without the knowledge of the people themselves as to what those commitments mean.

Sir CHARLES OMAN: I shall not detain the House for more than one minute. I wish just to illustrate the rhetorics of the last speaker but one (Captain Hay) who told us that we must not use bombs against the wild tribes in Mesopotamia when they give trouble, because they have no bombs or aircraft with which to reply. I wish to develop that argument a little further. It means that when we are struggling with the bush tribes in the centre of Africa we shall have to use assagais, because they have nothing but assagais with which to answer us. When we send troops North of Chitral to deal with the remote tribes of Central Asia our troops must be armed with matchlocks, because those tribes have nothing but matchlocks with which to reply. When we are troubled with the Afridis, we must see that our troops are not provided with modern rifles, but with the older types of Martini-Henrys and Lee-Metfords which are many years out of date. The logical effect of my hon. Friend's argument, therefore, is that we must only use those weapons which our enemies themselves possess.

Captain HAY: The hon. Member who has just sat down (Sir C. Oman) said he would proceed to develop what he stated was my argument. He has not developed my argument at all. My argument was this. If we condemned the Germans in 1915 for using gas against our troops, or for dropping bombs on open towns—as we, rightly as I believe, did condemn them—we are wrong now in using the same means against the helpless people in this land.

Question put, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution. "

The House divided: Ayes, 258; Noes, 158.

Division No. 55.]
AYES.
[7.5a p.m.


Adkins, Sir William Ryland Dent
Fermor-Hesketh, Major T.
Mitchell, W. F. (Saffron Walden)


Ainsworth, Captain Charles
Flanagan, W. H,
Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)


Alexander, E. E. (Leyton, East)
Foreman, Sir Henry
Molloy, Major L. G. S.


Apsley, Lord
Forestier-Walker, L.
Molson, Major John Elsdale


Archer-Shee, Lieut-Colonel Martin
Foxcroft, Captain Charles Talbot
Moore, Major-General Sir Newton J.


Ashley, Lt.-Col, Wilfrid W.
Fraser, Major Sir Keith
Moreing, Captain Algernon H.


Astbury, Lieut.-Com. Frederick W.
Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
Morrison, Hugh (Wilts, Salisbury)


Astor, J. J. (Kent, Dover)
Furness, G. J.
Nail, Major Joseph


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Galbraith, J. F. W.
Nesbitt, Robert C.


Banbury, Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick G.
Ganzoni, Sir John
Newman, Colonel J. R. P. (Finchley)


Banks, Mitchell
Gardiner, James
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)


Banner, Sir John S. Harmood
Gates, Percy
Newson, Sir Percy Wilson


Barlow, Rt. Hon. Sir Montague
Gaunt, Rear-Admiral Sir Guy R.
Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge)


Barnett, Major Richard W.
Gilbert, James Daniel
Nicholson, Brig.-Gen. J. (Westminster)


Barnston, Major Harry
Goff, Sir R. Park
Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)


Becker, Harry
Gould, James C.
Nield, Sir Herbert


Bell, Lieut.-Col. W. C. H. (Devizes)
Grenfell. Edward C. (City of London)
Norton-Griffiths, Lieut.-Col. Sir John


Bennett, Sir T. J. (Sevenoaks)
Gretton, Colonel John
Oman, Sir Charles William C.


Berry, Sir George
Guest, Hon. C. H. (Bristol, N.)
Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William


Betterton, Henry B.
Guinness, Lieut.-Col. Hon. W. E.
Parker, Owen (Kettering)


Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Gwynne, Rupert S.
Parry, Lieut.-Colonel Thomas Henry


Blades, Sir George Rowland
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Pease, William Edwin


Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.
Hall, Rr-Adml Sir W.(Liv'p'I.W.D'by)
Pennefather, De Fonblanque


Boyd-Carpenter, Major A.
Halstead, Major D.
Penny, Frederick George


Brass, Captain W.
Hamilton, Sir George C. (Altrincham)
Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)


Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Perkins, Colonel E. K.


Briggs, Harold
Harmsworth, Hon. E. C. (Kent)
Perring, William George


Brown, Major D. C. (Hexham)
Harvey, Major S. E.
Poto, Basil E.


Brown, Brig.-Gen. Clifton (Newbury)
Hawke, John Anthony
Pielou, D. p.


Brown, J. W. (Middlesbrough, E.)
Hay, Major T. W. (Norfolk, South)
Filditch, Sir Philip


Bruford, R.
Hennessy, Major J. R. G.
Pretyman, Rt. Hon. Ernest G.


Buckingham, Sir H.
Herbert, Col. Hon. A. (Yeovil)
Privett, F. J.


Buckley, Lieut.-Colonel A.
Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)
Rae, Sir Henry N.


Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James
Hewett. Sir J. P.
Raeburn. Sir William H.


Burn, Colonel Sir Charles Rosdew
Hiley, Sir Ernest
Ralne, W.


Burney, Com. (Middx., Uxbridge)
Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G.
Rankin, Captain James Stuart


Butler, H. M. (Leeds, North)
Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D.(St. Marylebone)
Rawlinson, Rt. Hon. John Fredk. Peel


Butt, Sir Alfred
Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy
Rawson, Lieut.-Com. A. C.


Button, H. S.
Holbrook, Sir Arthur Richard
Reid, Capt. A. S. C. (Warrington)


Campion, Lieut.-Colonel W. R.
Hood, Sir Joseph
Reid, D. D. (County Down)


Cassels, J. D.
Hopkins, John W. W,
Rentoul, G. S.


Cautley, Henry Strother
Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)
Reynolds, W. G. W.


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)
Houfton, John Plowright
Richardson, Sir Alex. (Gravesend)


Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton
Howard, Capt. D. (Cumberland, N.)
Richardson, Lt.-Col. Sir p. (Chertsey)


Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood)
Howard-Bury, Lieut.-Col. C. K.
Robertson, J. D. (Islington, W.)


Chapman, Sir S.
Hudson, Capt. A.
Robinson, Sir T. (Lanes., Stretford)


Chilcott, Sir Warden
Hughes, Collingwood
Rogerson, Capt. J. E.


Clarry, Reginald George
Hume, G. H.
Roundell, Colonel R. F.


Clayton, G. C.
Hume-Williams, Sir W. Ellis
Ruggles-Brise, Major E.


Cobb, Sir Cyril
Hunter-Weston, Lt-Gen. Sir Aylmer
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)


Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.
Hurst, Lieut.-Colonel Gerald B.
Russell, William (Bolton)


Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips
Hutchison, G. A. C. (Midlothian, N.)
Russell-Wells, Sir Sydney


Collie, Sir John
Hutchison, W. (Kelvingrove)
Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)


Colvin, Brig.-General Richard Beale
Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.
Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)


Cope, Major William
James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert
Sanders, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert A.


Cory, Sir J. H. (Cardiff, South)
Jarrett, G. W. S. 
Sandon, Lord


Craig, Capt. C. C. (Antrim, South)
Jenkins, W A. (Brecon and Radnor)
Scott, Sir Leslie (Liverp'l, Exchange)


Cralk, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry
Joynson-Hicks, Sir William
Shakespeare, G. H.


Croft, Lieut.-Colonel Henry Page
Kennedy, Captain M. S. Nigel
Sheffield, Sir Berkeley


Crook, C. W. (East Ham, North)
King, Captain Henry Douglas 
Shepperson, E. W.


Crooke, J. S. (Deritend)
Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement
Shipwright, Captain D.


Curzon, Captain Viscount 
Lane-Fox, Lieut.-Colonel G. R.
Sinclair, Sir A.


Dalziel, Sir D. (Lambeth, Brixton);
Law, Rt. Hon. A. B. (Glasgow, C.):
Singleton, J. E.


Davidson, J.C.C.(Hamel Hempstead)
Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)
Skelton A. N.


Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.
Lloyd-Greame, Rt. Hon. Sir P.
Somerville. A. A. (Windsor)


Davies, Thomas (Cirencester)
Locker-Lampson, Com. (Handsw'th)
Sparkes, H. W.


Dawson, Sir Philip
Lorden, John William
Spears, Brig.-Gen. E. L.


Dixon, C. H. (Rutland)
Lort-Williams, J.
Spender-Clay, Lieut.-Colonel H. H.


Doyle, N. Grattan
Lougher, L.
Steel, Major S. Strang


Edmondson, Major A. J.
Loyd, Arthur Thomas (Abingdon)
Stewart, Gershom (Wirral)


Ednam, Viscount
Lumley, L. R.
Stockton, Sir Edwin Forsyth


England, Lieut.-Colonel A.
McNeill, Ronald (Kent, Canterbury)
Stott, Lt.-Col. W. H.


Erskine, Lord (Weston-super-Mare)
Manville, Edward
Strauss, Edward Anthony


Erskine-Bolst, Captain C.
Margesson, H. D. R.
Stuart, Lord C. Crichton.


Evans, Ernest (Cardigan) |
Marks, Sir George Croydon
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid H.


Falcon, Captain Michael 
Mason, Lieut.-Col. C. K.
Sutclitte. T.


Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray
Mercer, Colonel H.
Sykes, Major-Gen. Sir Frederick H.


Fawkes, Major F. H. 
Milne, J. S. Wardlaw
Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)


Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, S.)
Watts, Dr. T. (Man., Withington)
Wood, Rt. Hn. Edward F. L. (Ripon)


Thorpe, Captain John Henry
Wells, S. R.
Wood, Sir H. K. (Woolwich, West)


Titchfield, Marquess of
Weston, Colonel John Wakefield
Woodcock, Colonel H. C.


Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement
White, Lt.-Col. G. D. (Southport)
Yate, Colonel Sir Charles Edward


Tubbs, S. W.
Whitla, Sir William
Yerburgh, R. D. T.


Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.
Winfrey, Sir Richard
Young, Rt. Hon. E. H. (Norwich)


Wallace, Captain E.
Winterton, Earl



Waring, Major Walter
Wise, Frederick
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Warner, Sir T. Courtenay T.
Wolmer, Viscount
Colonel Leslie Wilson and Colonel Gibbs.


NOES.


Adams, D.
Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Parker, H. (Hanley)


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Shetland)
Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)


Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')
Harbord, Arthur
Ponsonby, Arthur


Ammon, Charles George
Hardle, George D,
Potts, John S.


Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry
Harmsworth, Hon. E. C. (Kent)
Pringle, W. M. R.


Attlee, C. R.
Harney, E. A.
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)
Hay, Captain J. P. (Cathcart)
Riley, Ben


Barnes, A.
Hayday, Arthur
Ritson, J.


Batey, Joseph
Hayes, John Henry (Edge Hill)
Roberts, C. H. (Derby)


Bennett. A. J. (Mansfield)
Hemmerde, E. G.
Roberts, Frederick O. (W. Bromwich)


Berkeley, Captain Reginald
Henderson, T. (Glasgow)
Robinson, W. C. (York, Elland)


Bonwick, A,
Herriotts, J.
Saklatvala, S.


Bowdler, W A.
Hillary, A E.
Scrymgeour, E.


Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.
Hirst, G. H.
Sexton, James


Briant, Frank
Hodge, Lieut.-Col. J. P. (Preston)
Shinwell, Emanuel


Broad, F. A.
Hogge, James Myles
Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John


Bromfield, William
Jenkins, W, (Glamorgan, Neath)
Simpson, J. Hope


Brotherton, J.
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Sitch, Charles H.


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Johnston, Thomas (Stirling)
Smith, T. (Pontefract)


Buchanan, G.
Johnstone, Harcourt (Willesden, East)
Snell, Harry


Buckle, J.
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Snowden, Philip


Burgess, S.
Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown)
Spencer, H. H. (Bradford, S.)


Buxton, Noel (Norfolk, North)
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Stephen, Campbell


Cairns, John
Jones, R. T. (Carnarvon)
Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)


Cape, Thomas
Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)
Sullivan, J,


Chapple, W. A.
Jowett, F. W. (Bradford, East)
Thomson, T. (Middlesbrough, West)


Carleton, H. C.
Kenyon, Barnet
Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)


Clarke, Sir E. C.
Kirkwood, D.
Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)


Collins, Pat (Walsall)
Lambert, Rt. Hon. George
Thornton, M.


Collison, Levi
Lansbury, George
Trevelyan, C. P.


Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)
Lawson, John James
Turner, Ben


Darblshire, C. W.
Leach, W.
Wailhead, Richard C.


Davies, J. C. (Denbigh, Denbigh)
Lee, F.
Walsh, Stephen (Lancaster, Ince)


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Linfield, F. C.
Warne, G. H.


Duffy, T, Gavan
Lowth, T.
Watson, W, M. (Dunfermline)


Duncan, C.
Lunn, William
Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda) 


Dunnico, H.
M'Entee, V. L.
Wedgwood, Colonel Josiah C.


Ede, James Chuter
Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)
Weir, L. M.


Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
March, S.
Welsh, J. C.


Emlyn-Jones, J. E, (Dorset, N.)
Martin F. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, E.)
Westwood, J,


Fairbairn, R. R.
Maxton, James
White, H. G. (Birkenhead, E.)


Falconer, J.
Middleton, G.
Whiteley, W.


Foot, Isaac
Millar, J. D.
Wignall, James


Gosling, Harry
Morel, E. D.
Williams, David (Swansea, E.)


Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)
Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)


Graham, W. (Edinburgh, Central)
Mosley, Oswald
Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)


Gray, Frank (Oxford)
Muir, John W.
Wintringham, Margaret


Greenall, T.
Murnin, H.
Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C)


Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)
Murray, R. (Renfrew, Western)
Wright, W.


Grenfell, D, R. (Glamorgan)
Newbold, J. T. W.
Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)


Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Nichol, Robert



Groves, T.
O'Grady, Captain James
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Grundy, T. W.
Oliver, George Harold
Mr. Phillipps and Sir A. Marshall.


Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)
Paling, W.



Question put, and agreed to.

GAS REGULATION ACT, 1920.

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That the draft of a Special Order (entitled the East Kent Gas Order, 1923), proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under Section 10 of the Gas Regulation Act, 1920, on the application of Drew-Bear, Perks, and Company, Limited, which was presented on the 14th March, 1923, and published, be approved. "— [Viscount Wolmer.]

Mr. W. THORNE: I think the House is entitled to know what these Orders mean. They are slipping through without any explanation being given of them.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Viscount Wolmer): I would inform the House and the hon. Member that there is no opposition to these Orders. There is opposition
in the case of Harwich and I have not moved it, because I do not think it would be fair to move it.

Mr. W. THORNE: What is the meaning of them?

Viscount WOLMER: Under the Gas Regulation Act, 1920, when a new gas works, or extension of a gas works are required, the Board of Trade holds an inquiry. Notice of that inquiry is given. Any opposition to the proposed scheme is heard by the Board of Trade, and then the Board of Trade frames an Order, which lies on the Table of the House, and comes before the House. These are all Orders to which there has been no opposition.

Resolved,
That the draft of a Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under Section 10 of the Gas Regulation Act, 1920, on the application of the Ryde Gaslight Company and the Brading Harbour District Gas Company, which was presented on the 8th March, 1923, and published, be approved.

Resolved,
That the draft of a Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under Section 10 of the Gas Regulation Act, 1920, on the application of the Weston-super-Mare Gaslight Company, which was presented on the 8th March, 1923, and published, be approved." — [Viscount Wolmer.]

Orders of the Day — ELECTRICITY (SUPPLY) ACTS, 1882 TO 1922.

Resolved,
That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1922, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, confirming an agreement between the Slough Urban District Council and the Slough and Datchet Electric Supply Company, Limited, which was presented on the 13th day of February, 1923, be approved.

Resolved,
That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1922, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of the urban district of Hoole and parts of the rural districts of Chester and Tarvin, in the county of Chester, which was presented on the 13th day of February, 1923, be approved.

Resolved,
That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1922, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of the urban district of Aberayron, in the county of Cardigan, which was presented on the 13th day of February, 1923, be approved.

Resolved,
That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1922, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of the urban district of Crook, in the county of Durham, which was presented on the 13th day of February, 1923, be approved.

Resolved,
That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1922, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of the burgh of Invergordon and part of the parish of Rosskeen, in the county of Ross and Cromarty, which was presented on the 19th day of February, 1923, be approved.

Resolved,
That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1922, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of the continuance and extension of the generating station at Limehouse, which was presented on the 19th day of February, 1923, be approved."—[Colonel Ashley."]

Orders of the Day — CAPITALIST SYSTEM.

Mr. SNOWDEN: I beg to move,
That, in view of the failure of the capitalist system to adequately utilise and organise natural resources and productive power, or to provide the necessary standard of life for vast numbers of the population, and believing that the cause of this failure lies in the private ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, this House declares that legislative effort should be directed to the gradual supersession of the capitalist system by an industrial and social order based on the public ownership and democratic control of the instruments of production and distribution.
In moving this Resolution, may I say that we have put it down as a direct challenge to the holders and defenders of the capitalist system. We think it necessary that a subject which has been so much discussed on political platforms throughout the country, and has provided
material for the members of other political parties to criticise the Labour party on their programme, should be a direct issue in this House. When I put down this Resolution I had no idea that it would excite the widespread interest that it has evoked. I desire to express my appreciation—I had almost said graticude—to those who do not accept this Resolution for the serious way in which they have received it. It is an evidence of the extraordinary progress which socialist opinion has made in this country during the last 20 or 30 years. During that time there have been socialist organisations in this country carrying on a widespread propaganda of the ideals which are embodied in this Resolution. For a long time our platform was confined to street corners and the market place. It is, indeed, an evidence of the progress in the public mind of the ideals which have been propagated, that to-day the Government of the country so much appreciates the importance of this issue that they are prepared to give Government time to its discussion. It should be so, for the ideas which are held with almost religious fervour by millions of people in 'the world, ideals economic and social, are those which are going to be the dividing line in the future between the different parties. They should be seriously, reasonably, and intelligently discussed.
If I might, at the outset I would say that I have always tried to give those who differ from us equal credit for their honesty, and for their sympathy for the condition of a large part of our population. Sympathy is not the monoply of the Socialist party. We differ, perhaps not much in regard to the defects of the existing industrial system. Those defects are too obvious to be either ignored or denied. We differ, and I shall proceed on that assumption in what I have to say this evening, as to the best means by which industrial conditions can be improved and social amelioration attained. We indict the capitalist system. It is capitalism, not socialism, which is on its trial. I think I shall carry general agreement when I say that the test of any economic system must be: "Does it deliver the goods? Does it fulfil its functions? "The most able, and almost the only defender of the capitalist system, Mr. Hartley Withers, in his book on the Case for Capitalism says, that an economic
system must be judged by this test: "Does it give the people a good world in which to live? "I propose to apply that test to the capitalist system: "Does it give the people a good world in which to live? "I shall submit that the capitalist system certainly fails to give the people a good world in which to live, and as we state in our Resolution it has failed adequately to utilise natural resources and productive power.
We live perhaps in the most wonderful period of the world's history. Mechanical progress, man's command over natural forces, if fully utilised, could increase the productive power of labour, 50, 100, 1,000 times over. I wonder if hon. Members of this House are acquainted with Mr. Henry George's epoch-making work "Progress and Poverty." If so, they will remember the opening chapters in which he supposes that a scientist of the 17th Century could have foreseen in imagination the wonderful scientific and mechanical improvements of the 19th Century. What would he have thought would be the result of this industrial change on the life of the people? If he could have foreseen the picturesque and lumbering stage coach superseded by the railway train running at 60 miles an hour; if he could have foreseen our modern spinning machinery with its spindles revolving 10,000 times a minute, and spinning yarns as thin as a spider's web—if he could have foreseen this, what would he have thought it would mean in the way of material improvement and a better social system. He would have said the dream of Aristotle at last is realised, and man has become free by transferring his chains to machinery.
What has happened? Sixty years after the advent of industrialism, a nineteenth century economist said that he doubted if all our labour-saving machinery had lightened the day's toil of a single individual. At any rate, whether we accept that statement or not, we should agree that we have to-day, in spite of all these possibilities of wealth production, a very large mass of our people working hard, under unhealthy conditions, and for low wages, and a very considerable part of those who would work are unable to work; while, at the other end of the social scale, we have people so rich that even imagination cannot devise means for spending their superabundant wealth. After 150 years of this wonderful scientific and
mechanical advancement, that sums up our industrial and social conditions. The capitalist system, therefore, has not given the people a good world in which to live. It has failed to utilise to the utmost those mechanical inventions and those possibilities of organisation. There was published, a year or two before the outbreak of war, a census of production, and I am sure that the results of that must have come as a great surprise even to those who flattered themselves that they were fairly intimately acquainted with industrial and commercial matters. It disclosed that the amount of wealth production, at the end of that century of wonderful advance, represented only £110 per head of the population engaged on productive work.
What is the explanation of that low output of material things? I submit that it is this: The capitalist system, by its method of wealth distribution, enables a very large rich, idle class to grow up, and their spending power is to a very great extent exercised, not in the support of the staple industries of the country but in the maintenance of unremunerative and unproductive labour. A great capitalist some years ago published a very remarkable book on that aspect of our social conditions, and he came to the conclusion that at that time, 30 years ago, four-elevenths of the population of this country, who were supposed to work, were unproductively employed, to a very large extent as the servants of rich people, or engaged in some way or other catering for the luxury of those who had money to spend. I am quite sure that the proportion must be considerably larger to-day. Not only has the capitalist system failed to provide a decent standard of living for those who at any particular time may be in work, but this House is painfully familiar with the fact that we have a fairly considerable proportion of would-be workers who are unable to obtain employment. The capitalist system has assumed the function of managing industry. It has failed to do that adequately or efficiently. We have to-day probably not less—some of my hon. Friends sitting behind me would say more—than 1,500,000 would-be workmen out of employment. How do you defend the system? How can anybody defend the system which, while claiming a
monopoly of the function of finding employment, is unable to find employment for 1,500,000 would-be workers? I know that it is going to be urged in the course of this Debate that there are defects in the capitalist system, but that things are on the mend. I shall have something to say about that before I sit down, but what has capitalism been able to do? I know that the conditions are somewhat abnormal to-day, but they are abnormal as the result of capitalism, because the War, in its final analysis, was due to the international commercial and capitalist system.
Take the question of wages. We have at this moment a strike in what ought to be the greatest of our industries—the agricultural industry—where men are resisting the imposition of a wage of 23s. a week, worth about 14s. a week at pre-War values. I remember that, during a railway strike which occurred since the War, the Government, out of the taxpayers' money, placarded the hoardings of the country showing the improvement that had taken place in railwaymen's wages, and pointing to the fact that in 1913 there were 100,000 railwaymen earning less than £l a week. That is after a century of your boasted capitalist system. There you have represented those advantages which the capitalist system has given to the country, as stated in one of the suggested Amendments to this Motion. Again, in the mining industry, as the House has often been reminded during the last few months, you have rates of wages which do not enable the miners and their families to keep body and soul together, wages which have to be supplemented by Poor Law relief. Again, the capitalist system has failed, because it cannot keep harmony between employers and workers. There are constant disputes, to the extent of 2,000 or 3,000, in the course of a year. There is, however, no sphere in which the capitalist system has more lamentably failed than in providing what is a prime necessity of the people, namely, housing accommodation. You are having broadcasting: you listen to concerts held 3,000 miles away. Your intelligence and scientific knowledge can do that, but we have not brought our intelligence to the solution of the primary need of providing for every family a decent habitation.
There was published last night a Blue-book giving the housing statistics at the
time of the last Census here in this great City of London. Let those who defend the capitalist system, let those who boast about the advantages it has conferred upon the people, read the facts there stated. One hundred and ten thousand families in this city living more than two persons to a room! On Census night there were found 616 families which had six people living and sleeping in one room. According to this Report 30 per cent. of the families in London are living in a condition which is described officially as a state of overcrowding. May I give one word of authority which I am sure will appeal to every Member opposite, for he is one of themselves? He was elected to the London County Council as a stern opponent of Socialism. The Chairman of the Housing Committee of the London County Council says there there are no fewer than 2,000 slum areas in London, and he says:
The class of houses required by the working classes will not be built by private enterprise.
Therefore in the provision of this prime necessity, housing accommodation, on the authority of those who disagree with us, private enterprise and your capitalist system has lamentably failed.
Again, what effect have the conditions of work and of life under the capitalist system upon the health of the people? Here I come to one of the most serious items. Every employer on that side of the House will agree that between the best and the least efficient workman, doing the same kind of work, using the same tools or machinery, there will be a difference in the output of at least 30 per cent. How do you explain that? Only by the physical and the mental condition, and the inefficient man is the victim of bad conditions. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] I am amazed that an obvious truth like that can be disputed and received apparently with hilarious shouts. Inefficiency not due to bad conditions in the worst sense of the word—bad housing, lack of education! Certainly. Take the health statistics. So bad had the health of the people become that about 10 years ago the Government of the day were compelled to give some attention to it and we had the National Health Insurance Act, and the last Report but one of the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health stated that in the year under review we lost in the aggre-
gate 260,000 years of labour through ill-health annually amongst those who had insured under the National Health Insurance.

Sir W. LANE MITCHELL: What has that to do with it?

Mr. SNOWDEN: I am not going to instruct a Member who is so ignorant as not to see the obvious. It proves that the conditions under which these people live, the conditions under which many of them were born, the conditions of their labour are such that it results in enervation, disease, ill-health and consequent loss of life. That is another outcome of your capitalist system. That is another illustration of the good world for the people to live in and of the advantages which the people have received from private enterprise and the capitalist system. It is the distribution of wealth which is the cause of these social evils and inequalities. Eighty-eight per cent. of the wealth of this country is owned by 2½ per cent. of the population, and five out of every six persons who die leave not a penny behind them. The capitalist system—and I include in the capitalist system our land system—has failed to utilise its resources. Need I say a word or two about the land? Would it not be sufficient if I referred you to the newspaper report of the interview which took place, recently between the Prime Minister and certain farmers. They came to the Prime Minister to tell him their industry was in a bankrupt condition. Private enterprise and private landlordism have failed and the only hope for this, which should be the greatest of our national industries, was in Protection, a crutch to inefficiency, or in a State subsidy. Lord Ernie, who is remembered by many Members of the House as Minister for Agriculture, recently stated that the only party in this country which has an agricultural policy is the Labour party, and nothing that I could say would be half so scathing in denunciation of the inefficiency of our agriculture and of our land policy as has been stated by Lord Ernie and Lord Bledisloe, who is also known to Members of this House. So much for the failure of the land system. So much for its claim to give the people a good world in which to live.
Now, is it possible, as one of the suggested Amendments appears to claim, without changing the basis of our economic
system, to eliminate the admitted defects and evils of the existing order? That question is very often answered by the statement that conditions and wage-earning capacity are improving. That I deny. I am ready to admit that from 1850 to 1874, or thereabouts, there was a progressive, but not very great, improvement in the wages and hours of labour, and also a reduction in the cost of living, and there was an improvement in the social condition of the wage-earning classes, but for a decade before the outbreak of the War the condition of the wage-earning classes has not only been getting relatively, but actually, worse. The standard rate of piece wages in the greatest of our manufacturing industries, the Lancashire cotton trade, in 1908—the reason I give that year is that the Board of Trade issued a Report giving these facts—was exactly the same as in 1854. What about the increase of wealth during that period? In 1918 the amount assessed to Income Tax under Schedule D was 12 times more than in 1854. Twelve times more! Let hon. Members remember what I have just said, that there had been very little improvement in the wages of the wage-earning classes in that period. For ten years prior to the outbreak of War the wages had either remained stationary or had declined. Between 1874 and 1908 the mean increase of wages, that is, taking all the industries, had been under 10 per cent. Between the dates that I have mentioned, the amount taken very largely by incomes received by those who made no contribution to labour for those incomes, had increased by 12 times.
On these facts we are not justified in saying that under this system of capitalism we can expect an improvement in the condition of the masses of the people. There has been some improvement, I admit, and I specially wish to impress this fact upon the House, that we are not living to-day under a capitalist system which is wholly free and unrestrained. We had an unrestrained and free capitalist system in the early part of the 19th century with this result, that little children of from five to six years of age were set to work in factories, and tubs of water were kept handy in which to dip them when they fell asleep. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Women were employed in the coal mines. All these facts
have been proved in evidence given before Royal Commissions whose reports are to be found on the shelves of this House. That was the glorious time of unrestrained capitalism. The conscience of the nation was outraged, and capitalism was restrained. Any improvement that has taken place in the condition of the people since those days has not been due to what capitalism has done. Capitalism has done nothing to make a good world for the people to live in. The improvement has been brought about by the application, partially, of the principles of Socialism, which we are demanding to-night shall be more fully applied to the affairs of the nation.
I can remember that when I began my career as a Socialist agitator the subject about which we were always questioned was the value of competition. There were always people who were prepared to defend the virtues and advantages of competition. We do not hear so much of that to-day, because capitalism itself has confessed that competition is not a good thing for itself. What has been the result? The opportunities for private enterprise and private interests are passing away; they are being narrowed down by the creation of trusts. Competition contains within itself the germs of its own destruction. The creation of trusts shows the admitted failure of the capitalist system as we have known capitalism in the past. I have no time to deal at length with the evil and menace of these things. [An HON. MEMBER: "What is your remedy?" and Interruption.]

Mr. SPEAKER: It is unfair for hon. Members to try to conduct the Debate by interruptions. The only possible form of debate is to listen to what the opposite side has to say.

Mr. SNOWDEN: I was speaking to-day to a very well-informed American, and he told me that there are 26 States in the American Union which are wholly under the domination of two or three great trusts, which control everything from the railways to the growing crops and the cattle on the ranches. The view used to be held that a trust was a thing that flourished only in the United States of America; but one cannot take up a newspaper in this country to day without seeing in the financial pages an announcement of some financial combination or
other. These things are a confession of the failure of competition. It is no longer a question of whether we shall have trusts or not. There are, I admit, great economic advantages in trusts; but there are also dangers for the community. A trust, if it. be efficiently organised, well managed, and not over capitalised, as a great many of them are, can undoubtedly produce more cheaply. It eliminates all the waste of competition. When these trusts are privately owned the economic advantages go, not to the community, but to increase the profits of the people who own the capital invested in the trust.
What is the deep, big root of all these things? I was invited by a garrulous hon. Member sitting below the Gangway to tell him our remedy. I will tell him, but before you can prescribe a remedy you must know something of the nature of the disease. The cause of this disease, as is indicated in my Amendment, is to be found in the private ownership and monopoly by certain individuals of land and the instruments of production. May I quote an economist of the 19th century, who sat upon the Benches of this House, who said that the deep root of the evils and inequalities which fill the industrial world is the subjection of labour to monopoly. There seems to be an impression abroad that the capitalist system as we have known it since the industrial revolution is a thing that was ordained on the morning of creation and destined to last to the crack of doom. I would advise any hon. Members who entertain that idea to take a very elementary course in economics, and to buy some cheap primer dealing with the evolution of human society. By far the greatest time that man has been upon this globe he has lived not under a system of private enterprise, not under capitalism, but under a system of tribal communism, and it is well worth while to remember that most of the great inventions that have been the basis of our machinery and our modern discoveries were invented by men who lived together in tribes. The present industrial system is one stage in economic and social evolution; and just as previous social and economic systems have disappeared when they have fulfilled their functions and have been succeeded by a higher form, so the present capitalist system will pass away and is passing away, consciously
passing away, before the eyes of every man who has sufficient intelligence to read the signs of the times.
How is this monopoly which I have described responsible for the evils which I have indicated? Take land. A man must have access to land, and land being owned by certain individuals they possess the power to say whether any other individuals—landless men—shall have access to the land or not, and they also have the power to say, and do so in effect, that these men shall have access to the land only on the terms which the landlord dictates, and the terms he dictates are that all the produce of the land shall go in rent to the owner above just sufficient to keep the cultivator of the land alive. In the same way under the capitalist system it is not possible in these days for each individual workman to own the tools with which he works. The amount of capital required to-day is so large as to be altogether beyond the power of any workman to produce it. It is suggested in one of these Amendments that every workman should become a capitalist. Suppose a worker succeeds in saving £200 or £300, let him start business as a chemical manufacturer in competition with Brunner Mond, and he will very soon get all the advantages of capitalism, and have opened to him the avenues of private enterprise.
9.0 P.M.
Hon. Members ask what do we propose. We propose no revolution, and we do not propose, and I certainly always will resist any proposal of confiscation. It is the longest way of obtaining your object, and the certain way to disaster. There is no analogy between Socialism and Bolshevism. Socialism and Bolshevism are antitheses. I hope that hon. Members will forgive me when I tell them that Bolshevism, both in its political theories and its practice, and in its ideal of dictatorship and confiscation, is not Socialism, but die-hard Toryism. The die-hards in this country have always tried to obtain the fullest political dictatorship, and they have succeeded for many centuries. The records of English history show abundant instances in which the dominant class expropriated the poverty of others for their own advantage. There are three or four ways in which we have been dealing with the capitalist system, and all we suggest is that we should continue
on these lines, but move much more rapidly. We are not advocates of confiscation or of resort to force, and though I am speaking for myself, I think I shall carry the approval of all members of my party when I say that we want no further step forward until the previous step which we took has been justified by its success. We have been moving forward in many directions. We have been restraining capital in a thousand ways. What are the two or three Bills which are now before the House but very moderate and inadequate ways to deal with the failure of the capitalist system? Again and again the representative of the Government is compelled to step in to do something to supplement that failure and supply what private enterprise cannot supply. The state of agriculture is compelling the consideration of the Government. Private enterprise and private landlords have failed. The whole of the business of this House is dealing with the failures of private enterprise. We move slowly and reluctantly, but we are compelled by necessity. We have been driven further and further.
We began by simply restraining private capital, giving franchises to private capitalists on certain conditions, but that was not sufficient, Then the community were compelled to take over big enterprises and hold them and work them. I do not know the exact figures, we have not had them recently—but the amount of capital invested in public enterprises in this country cannot, I think, be very far short of a £1,000,000,000. There is hardly an enterprise in which Government or municipalities are not engaged. I know that conditions have been abnormal during the last eight years, but take the facts as they were before the outbreak of war. Municipal enterprise stood head and shoulders everywhere above private companies and private enterprise engaged in similar work. [HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense!" and "Yes!"] When Sir Eric Geddes, the business man of the Government, stood at that bench two years ago, introducing his Transport Bill, he said that the only bright spot in the transport system of the country was the municipal tramways.
Then housing was formerly regarded as sacrosanct, a specially protected privilege
of private enterprise, but when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Swansea (Sir A, Mond) occupied the position which is now held by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Lady-wood (Mr. N. Chamberlain) he carried out an innovation. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that when the Socialist State comes into being he need have no fear, because his great abilities, his wonderful mental capacities, and his great organising skill will find abundant scope for their activities in organising Socialist enterprises. Let us see what the right hon. Gentleman said. Speaking of the work of his Department in erecting State buildings, he stated that at Richmond the Department had built houses. His price was £1,000; the contractors' price was £1,400. In another case that he quoted, the cost was £900, including overhead charges, the lowest tender received was for £1,638. Then he went on to say that by direct labour he was saving from £300 to £600 on each house. Speaking of other State building, the right hon. Baronet added:
It has been done at a lower rate than any private firm could be expected to do the work for, because they have to make a profit and we do not.
Hitherto the Government's attempts to supersede capitalism and private enterprise have been made reluctantly and hesitatingly. What we ask is that it-should be the conscious policy of government, and that the Government's energies should be directed, by legislative and administrative acts, to bring about that result. I gather from some of the newspaper comments which I have seen upon this question that the impression appears to prevail in certain quarters that this is a new departure on the part of the Labour party. Some of the newspapers say of the Labour party that at last it appears in its true colours. May I tell hon. Members that it is 30 years since the Trade Unions Congress, usually regarded as a very conservative body, passed a resolution urging the socialisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange. If hon. Members opposite would only prepare their case before they criticise the Labour party, if, for instance, they had read the election manifesto which the Labour party issued at the last election, they would see that the first statement there was a declaration almost identical with the terms of this Motion.
As a matter of fact it appears in the written constitution of the Labour party. Therefore we stand for this, and we do not apologise for it.
If hon. Members opposite think that they are going to make party, political capital out of this adventure of mine, they are grievously disappointed. They have done all the mischief they can by branding the Labour party as a Socialist and Bolshevist organisation, and the result is that I have seen the Labour party in this House grow from four to 144 Members. This, then, is our policy. It matters little from one point of view what is the fate of this Resolution. We shall continue our work, and we shall do it conscious that, as Mr. Gladstone once said, standing at that Box—he was speaking on a mere political issue—the great social forces which for ever move on in their might and majesty and which the tumult of our Debates cannot for more than a moment impede or disturb; those social forces are on our side, and we shall continue to work in harmonious co-operation with them, certain that some day there will be established an economic and social system where individual ambition and private enterprise will find their satistion, not in the amount of tribute they levy on their fellows, but in the greatness of the service they render to them.

Mr. T. JOHNSTON: I beg to second the Motion.
I trust that we shall have many opportunities in this House of debating the positive proposals which the Labour party makes for the supersession of the capitalist system by the co-operative commonwealth for which we stand. But to night, as the last speaker said, it is not Socialism that is on its trial. We are challenging the capitalist order of society. We challenge the capitalist system under which normally and inevitably, and not as the result of war, millions of our fellows are condemned to misery and hunger and starvation in the midst of plenty. The late Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, long before the War, declared that there were continually in this country about 12,000,000 people living on the verge of starvation. That figure has increased since Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman made the statement. Probably to-day one-third part of our population is living on that verge
of starvation, and fully one-half of the population is without the creature comforts, without guarantees of security, lacking which the full and adequate development of human personality is absolutely impossible.
What is the capitalist system about which we and hon. Members opposite talk? A comparatively small class of the community own and control the land and the industrial capital of the country. The great mass of the people hire out their labour, sell themselves by the week, by the month, or by the year, to the owners of the land and industrial capital. When workers by hand or by brain are not required, when they cannot find an owner, they are set adrift to starve or to live more or less precariously upon the doles supplied by charitable and State agencies. When they are at work their labour power is bought at competitive prices in a competitive market, for wages which are meagre and are insufficient to enable them to accumulate reserves for the periods of unemployment. It follows clearly, I think that the workers cannot buy back the full social value of the goods they produce. Markets are speedily glutted and when the markets are glutted the workers are sent out to starve and you continue to have periodically what you call "crises" in which you have the spectacle of people starving in the midst of a superabundance of wealth. You have that to-day; you have in this country a glut of potatoes. There are some parts of the country where the farmer runs his plough through the potatoes because it does not pay him to harvest them and a few miles away hundreds of people, colliers, perhaps, are starving for want of potatoes. We read in another day's newspapers of fishermen throwing overboard huge catches of fish in order to keep the scarcity market and at the same time you have hundreds of thousands of people in the country starving for want of fish. The result of all this was made patent by your Ministry of National Service during the War when it reported after a military examination of the adult males of military age in this country, that three out of every nine were physically unfit. The worker is divorced from the control of the machine. The creative impulse, the genius among workers for the devising of new processes is crushed by the capitalist system. The worker to-
day regards labour-saving devices as being indeed labour-saving devices, because they mean speedy unemployment for him or his friends. I think it was John Stuart Mill already quoted by the lion. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden), who said:
It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of a single human being.
No invention shortens the hours of labour, as it would do in a sane social order. Invention to-day but adds to the toll taken by the owners of land and industrial capital. Thomas Carlyle saw what the capitalist system meant to the working classes when he said:
Our successful industry has been hitherto unsuccessful. In the midst of plethoric plenty the people perish.
John Ruskin saw too when he said:
Our cities are wildernesses of spinning wheels, yet our people have not clothes.
Lord Leverhulme sees it When he puts his name to the statement, that if our society were properly organised as it could be organised now, one hour's labour per week would be sufficient to enable us to maintain our present standard of comfort. In his preface to Professor Spooner's book "Wealth and Waste" Lord Leverhulme writes:
It is said—and articles by Professor Spooner in this book go to prove it is true— that owing to our waste of labour through bad organisation and our bad use of the forces that nature has placed within our reach, we can to-day by overwork and overstrain in workshop and factory for 48 or more hours per week, barely produce sufficient for our needs, whilst we might with the means science has already placed at our disposal and which are all within our knowledge, provide for all the wants of each of us in food, shelter and clothing by one hour's work per week for each of us from school age to dotage, thus clearly showing what can yet be accomplished simply by the avoidance of waste.
The hon. Member for Colne Valley quoted words used in this House by the President of the Federation of British Industries. I have another quotation from him. His authority will surely be accepted by some hon. Gentlemen opposite Sir Eric Geddes says:
In the past, private enterprise has made for development, but to-day, I think I may say, it makes for colossal waste.
That is the testimony of the President of the Federation of British Industries
that private industry stands for colossal waste. There is one other aspect of this private ownership of capital to which I should like briefly to draw the attention of the House. As long as the nation has no control over private investments of capital we shall have the spectacle of finance capital being exported from these shores abroad. Last year, according to the figures in the "Statist," there were exported from this country £147,000,000 of British capital for investment abroad. [HON. MEMBERS: "India!"] Yes, India. Cheap labour, to compete with the higher-paid British worker, to batter down the British worker, and to bring him to a level of the Indian coolie. In many cases it is the owner of the jute works in Dundee who owns the jute works in India. They are using that export of capital to India to create a new cheap labour reserve, to be used for breaking down further the standards of life of the common people of Great Britain. Is there any hon. Member who was in the last Parliament, or the War Parliament, at any rate, who will deny that it was frequently stated in this House, and frequently proved, that big blocks of British capital had been invested in enemy countries—at Fiume, for example, to build torpedoes? Those torpedoes were used in the Mediterranean, to sink British ships and to send British soldiers to their doom. Is it denied that British private capital fortified the Dardanelles against us, and caused the death of hundreds of thousands of Anzacs, and hundreds of thousands of British Tommies? Is it denied that during the War, while it was yet in progress—at least, it was frequently so stated in this House—pepper was exported, not to enemy countries. but to countries adjacent to enemy countries, whence it was carefully reshipped into the enemy countries for the manufacture of tear shells to break our soldiers on the battlefield? Is it denied that during the War our exports of tea to European lands adjacent to Germany more than doubled? Is it denied that that tea was shipped into Germany, and that our home price of tea against the soldier's wife and child, and against the British worker, was raised to 4s. per lb, because you let your tea market, your tea finance capital, be operated by private interests for private profit?
The private ownership of capital, the exploitation of British industry for private profit, has assisted, at any rate, in the paralysis of British agriculture. The Scottish farmers sent a Commission of Inquiry to Denmark in the years before the War. I wish my agricultural Friends on the opposite benches would study the Report of that Commission. There was not a Labour man on it, but the Commission came back and signed a Report declaring unanimously that the transit rates on the State railways of Denmark were less than one-half the rates on the private enterprise railways of Great-Britain. The late William Ewart Gladstone declared in this House that the Belgian State Railways ran goods at less than one-third of the cost on our private enterprise railways. Some hon. Members will have read the Report of the Coal Conservation Committee of this House. It is in the Library. What do we find there? We find that there are 4,000,000,000 tons of coal—barrier coal—in this country which cannot be mined because it is under private enterprise and dividing private property. Let us say that 3,000,000,000 tons of it could be mined. That is waste; colossal waste. In that Report the Commissioners declare that if, as a nation, we but built electricity stations in our coalfields; if we distributed our electricity in an economical and businesslike way, and smashed up the hundreds of silly, little, petty concerns, which are presently strangling our electricity supply, and are making huge profits in the course of it; if we organised our labour supply— again, there was not a. Labour man on that Commission—we could save £100,000,000 and 55,000,000 tons of coal per annum on our electricity supply alone
I should like to draw attention to a quotation from a well-known weekly financial review, the "Statist." In a leading article, on 25th January, 1919, —after the War—it says:
Our whole system of production is bad from beginning to end.
We require:
A complete overhauling of our economic system. We want the whole land of the country to be used economically, not to be kept for the delectation of exceptionally rich persons.
There were, at the time of the last Census, 600,000 adult males who could not give
themselves an occupation, but declared that they were idlers and lived without working at all.
Everyone "—
says the "Statist "—
should be compelled to work,"—
[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"]—I trust hon. Members opposite will cheer the conclusion of my sentence—
Everyone should be compelled to work, and those who emigrate to escape work should have their property seized.
There are no cheers now. Under capitalism our production is bad and our production is low, as the hon. Member for Colne Valley said, but our distribution is infinitely worse. Even as it is, we have learnt how to harness the tides; we can guide the lightning; we can send wireless messages across the heavens; we can plant one grain of wheat in the bosom of old Mother Earth, and she yields us 1,300 grains in return. All the knowledge, all the skill, all the technical processes of the past arc at our disposal to-day. We press a button or we turn a wheel, and commodities by the thousand and the hundred thousand pour forth at our feet; yet we cannot distribute them. There are people to-night starved in the midst of bulging warehouses. There have been unemployed in Leicester, and the children of the boot-workers going barefoot when the boot markets were glutted. In the cotton and wool towns the children go ragged where the warehouses are full, and to night you have got the spectacle of agricultural labourers starving in the midst of a glut of foodstuffs. That is the system you have to justify—starvation in the midst of plenty, hunger in the midst of a super-abundance—and that is the system that we on these benches challenge.

Sir ALFRED MOND: I beg to move to leave out from the word "That," to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof the words
this House, believing that the abolition of private interest in the means of production and distribution would impoverish the people and aggravate existing evils, is unalterably opposed to any scheme of legislation which would deprive the State of the benefits of individual initiative, and believing that far-reaching measures of social redress may be accomplished without overturning the present basis of society, is resolved to prosecute proposals which, by removing the evil effects of monopoly and waste, will conduce to the well-being of the people.
The hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden), as I expected, delivered a carefully reasoned and very clever speech— moderate in tone, moderate in statement, oratorical in effect—which I cannot endeavour to rival. He presented a formidable indictment, not of the capitalist system, but of civilisation—I might almost say of the Creator of the world. It is extremely easy to blame ill-health, insufficient life, feebleness of constitution, inequality of human ability, on to the capitalist system. But will the hon. Member tell me that under a Socialist system there would be no syphilitic children in the world? Will he tell me that, under a Socialist system, there would be no drunkards in the world and no off-spring of drunkards? Will he tell me that, whatever system you adopt, you can produce that equality of ability, that equality of efficiency, and that equality of physical and mental standard which he presupposes, and for the failure of which he attacks, not the capitalist system, but the industrial system? The hon. Member, much to my astonishment, dates the capitalist system about 100 years ago. The capitalist system has been the system of the world since the world existed. [Laughter.] Certainly it has. What was the system in this country in the time of Queen Elizabeth? What was the system in this country in the time of William the Conqueror? What has been the system ever since we evolved from that tribal system to which the hon. Member referred? What has been the course of evolution? The course of human civilisation has been from the tribal to the individualist system, and what the hon. Member calls the great evolutionary force is the reaction, the return to a system from which the world has developed and evolved.
It was not machinery that developed the capitalist system. A bootmaker in the 15th century, with one machine or one hammer in his hand, was just as much a capitalist—and the hon. Member knows it very well—as is the owner of a great factory to-day. He really must not use economic language in this extraordinarily vague way. The hon. Member really ought to take a course of instruction from the hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. S. Webb) next to him. He knows as well as I do that the shovel of an agricultural labourer, the tools of a fitter, the tools
of a carpenter are capital, just as much capital in the economic sense—and no economist can deny it, or ever has denied it—as the ownership or part-ownership of a loom. The man who had a hand loom in the old days was a capitalist. The man who has a steam loom may be a different form of capitalist—

Mr. J. JONES: Ah, ah!

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member for Silvertown (Mr. J. Jones) must not continually interrupt. I shall have to deal with him severely should he continue.

Sir A. MOND: In Lancashire and Yorkshire hundreds and thousands working in those mills are to-day part owners of the steam looms, as they were owners of the hand looms. What is the use of trying to confuse issues by confusing the rich man with the capitalist when there are millions of people in this country who are capitalists, but who are not rich at all? Every co-operator in your movement is a capitalist, for what is a share or a dividend in your co-operative movement but capital? If you wish to socialise capital, you must take the house of every working man who has saved up for it. If you mean that Socialism means robbing the rich, say so. That is a policy, but it is not Socialism. The hon. Member for Colne Valley repudiated confiscation. He said, "I would not confiscate; I would compensate." He will not take my shares, but he will pay for them. I do not mind. I would much sooner have State security than the uncertain security and anxiety of industrial work. But I should be extraordinarily sorry for the rest of the community who, for the services of men who understand industry, who have devoted their lives to it, and have an interest in it, are going to be left to a number of civil servants or theorists like the hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. T. Johnston), who seconded the Motion, to manage their business. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for East Rhondda (Lieut. - Colonel Watts - Morgan), who laughs, knows that as well as I do. He knows very well that he would rather have money in any business managed by me than in any business managed by a civil servant in Whitehall.
This is a very old controversy. I have been engaged in it now for very many years, and it always seems to me that our Socialist friends are very much like
the vendors of patent medicines. They describe the horrors of the disease, they see a terrible picture, they darken the shadows, they obscure the lights in every direction, they heighten the horrors, they point out the miseries of our present system, and they forget everything about the amenities and improvements. They draw a lurid picture, and then, when it comes to the remedy, they say very little about it. It is no use indicting the capitalist system. If the hon. Member could persuade me that he had a system which would abolish these social sores and improve the lot of the people of this country, a system that I could honestly believe would do any good, I would to-morrow be his most earnest recruit and his most faithful follower. I would admit facts. The fact that a few men in this country who are now rich would be worse off would not weigh with me. It would be a trifle compared with the social welfare of the country.
The hon. Member who moved and the hon. Member who seconded the Motion have not addressed themselves to one single practical question, to one single practical issue in the great controversy which they have raised. And it is a great controversy, the controversy whether you are going to rely on the individual, on the individual freedom and the individual enterprise of the people of this country, or whether, card indexed, confined and crabbed, State-officialed and State-oppressed, we are to form part of a great machine by which the wings of enterprise would be clipped, the spur of private initiative would be taken away, and a bureaucratic, soulless machine would be substituted for the freedom of the people of the country. You may indict the capitalist system, but we are entitled to indict and challenge the remedy you have proposed. You are entitled to point out that the world is very imperfect. Some people are beautiful, and some are not. Some people are clever, and some people are stupid. [An HON. MEMBER: "Do not apologise!"] I am not apologising; I am pointing out that, as far as I can see, you want to level all your clever people to the level of the stupid. The whole theory of capitalism, as expounded by some hon. Members, is entirely out-of-date. It does not exist in our modern industrial system. What exists in our modern industrial system is
the captain of industry, the man of enterprise and brains. He hires labour and he hires capital. He pays for one, and he pays for the other. He is the man who creates. [Interruption.] It is no good for the hon. Member to interrupt me. I know much more about this than he does.

Mr. W. THORNE: We all consume. That is what makes work.

Sir A. MOND: Obviously, if no one consumed, there would be no need of production. The real point of modern industrial enterprise is management, and that is really the key upon which the hon. Gentleman did not touch. I do not care whether you have privately-managed business or State-managed business. If it be badly-managed, it will be a failure. What is the reward of management, enterprise and industry? It is just that accumulation of wealth to which the hon. Member objects. If the hon. Member likes to go round the world to-day, he will find that the wealthy men are the men who started with very little, and by hard work, enormous energy and foresight, have built up great industries. The hon. Member made an observation which is perfectly true, that every workman should be made a capitalist. I quite agree. The hon. Member said—and I gladly accept his challenge—What is the use of a workman saving a few hundred pounds, and competing with a great firm like Brunner, Mond and Company? What they want to do is to become shareholders in the company. Certainly. I can tell the hon. Member that only a short time ago we discussed this question with men who have worked 30 or 40 years in our business, and who would be very astonished to recognise themselves as wage-slaves. They are proud of their record, and of their work, proud of their connection with the firm, and proud of its prosperity, and share in its prosperity
If the House will allow me, I will elaborate that very point of enterprise and management, that very point of infinite capacity to which hon. Members have referred. It seems to me that it is only possible under our present system, and I see no scope for it whatsoever under a system of socialism. It is now nearly 50 years since two young men got to know each other in business. With the very little money they had saved, they decided to start a new enterprise. Their
capital was very insufficient; their optimism very great. They adopted a process entirely unknown in this country. They asked people who understood the industry to come into it, but they laughed at it. They fought and struggled, and they founded that very concern to which the hon. Member referred, which has given employment and looked after its workmen for something like 50 years. That was the result of an enterprise which could never have been commenced under any socialist system I have ever known. Who would have been prepared to take the risk, which all the most experienced men in the industry said was an absurd risk to take? Those are points I want the hon. Member to deal with if he is dealing seriously with this question. This is only one instance. Those two men were my father and the late Sir John Brunner. They did not work eight hours a day, but 36 hours on end without stopping. They created work for themselves; they created works where thousands of people have been employed.
One of the difficulties which I feel with regard to socialism is that I do not see how you can make any progress. Hon. Members always seem to assume that the condition of industry is static. It is not; it is dynamic. They talk of the division of the wealth of the world as if it were a fixed amount, which wants to be divided up. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] It is not a fixed amount. I was saying that the progress of industry is dynamic. That is to say, the wealth of the world is not a fixed sum which can be divided up. What you want to do is to increase wealth, and I contend that the capitalist system is more likely to increase wealth, and be of more benefit to the whole community than any other system which has ever been devised. The hon. Member has not explained whether he wants State socialism or guild socialism, or what form of socialism. It is very fundamental. The hon. Member was kind enough to refer to certain statements I made on housing when at the Office of Works. I do not for a moment go back on the statements I have made, but I have been something like 26 years in business, and six years in Government; and I can tell the hon. Member that I am convinced from my experience as
Minister and business man, that it is impossible to carry on the industries of this country from a Government Department.
Then how is he going to carry them on? He has not detailed to us any scheme. I have heard schemes of "democratic control." That is a beautiful phrase, but the man who has to sell and buy and compete in the markets of the world, and meet the keenest competition of American, German and French manufacturers, does not get much guidance if told that in the future the industries he is conducting are to be conducted under democratic control. Presumably there would be a sort of Soviet every afternoon to decide whether to sell francs; whether the exchange is going up or down; whether we should take higher or lower prices for our products, or what advertising schemes we should adopt. These are practical, and not theoretical questions, and we are entitled to have an answer to them when we are asked to scrap a system which, after all, has brought the world somewhere, if not to the point we want. What is one of the real difficulties of this whole question of organising your industries nationally? One of your chief difficulties is magnitude.
I have come deliberately to the conclusion that it is quite impossible for human beings to control any industry beyond a certain magnitude, and I say that after very careful study. The very curious fact was told me by an American friend that when, under Mr. Roosevelt's administration, one of the American trusts was dissolved, the component parts of that trust made more money in competition with each other than when united, simply because it had outgrown proper economic management, and got so large that the company had got like a Government Department, so complicated and so full or red tape that paralysis set in. That is one of the difficulties which has to be faced, and it is a difficulty to which I have not found the solution. I have given a good deal of thought to the question of whether it would be possible to organise industry on a national basis. I have considered the matter very carefully, but I must confess, honestly that I did not see any method; and I do not believe it is possible to
organise an industry on any system of a national character which would give a higher efficiency.
What is the experience of the world as far as it has gone? Let me take a few examples. I will not take Russia, because I do not think Russia is altogether a fair example. I will take Germany, a very highly-organised country with a very efficient Government service. What do, we find:
German mines. It is a well-known fact that the coal mines managed and worked by the Government do not pay as well as those in private hands.
That is Consul-General Koenig's Report, 1911.
The State coal mines of the Saar, during a long period, have paid considerably lower wages, and charged substantially higher prices for coal than the Ruhr coal mines (in private hands).… The available statistics show considerable losses on all the State mines, whilst the private mines, apart from smaller individual pits, show satisfactory balance sheets.
That is from the "Arbeitgeber-Zeitung," of 6th April, 1919.
Gorman railways. Many of the railway workshops were closed by the Government which refused to conduct them at a loss any longer. According to Herr Oeser, Minister of Railways, the employés in the workshops have increased by 270 per cent., yet the output has steadily diminished.
That is the Berlin correspondent of the "Times," 3rd February, 1920. I would say to my hon. Friends that after the War the Germans had a Socialistic Government, a Socialistic majority. Yet they have been careful not to introduce any of these schemes of Socialism, which they advocated with the same vehemence and for the same period and length of time as my hon. Friend. I would venture to say that if he and his party came into office, they would adopt exactly the same course.
Let me follow on with a few more examples of another kind. Let me take a very highly-civilised country like France. Let me refer to the nationalised French railways. In 1908 the deficit on the State managed railways rose from 35,000,000 francs in 1909 to 77,400,000 francs in 1911 Then take Italy. Italy had national railways, but they denationalised them, because they found they could not make them pay. Although theoretically on paper all this ought not to happen, it does
happen. After all, hon. Members, although they like in this House, and sometimes on the platform, to be very theoretical, at bottom they are practical.
10.0 P.M.
I will tell them something on housing. When I was at the Ministry of Health, men engaged in the building industry would always work cheaper for a private contractor on a private job than they would ever work for a local authority. Until you can persuade everybody in this country, including the workmen, that they have got to work equally hard for the State or for a local authority as they do for a private individual or a private employer, you will have very little chance of improving the efficiency of a nationalised industry. I dare say that may come. It ought to come. People ought to work gladly and more willingly for loss money and longer hours for the common good. Hon. Members know that they do not.
A curious paralysing influence seems to come over everybody as soon as they begin to work for the State. One reason is that everybody has a cushy job. There is no profit and loss account, Nobody much cares how the money is being spent. What keeps this wretched private capitalistic system going? I will tell you. If a private capitalistic business is badly managed, it goes into the bankruptcy court. What does that mean? It means you have a method by which inefficiency is automatically weeded out of your industrial system. You have a method by which efficiency is automatically rewarded. It may be a crude system. It may be an unscientific system. It may seem a harsh system, but it is the only system in the world which has been devised up to the present.
Hon. Members have not found any system to take its place. Civil Service examinations, which is the only substitute under State socialism, are not going to replace the crude fact that people who cannot make profits in a business have to go tinder, and make way for the people who can. That is the whole basis of our free competitive system. The hon. Member says the competitive system has disappeared. That is not true. You can trustify your industries as much as you like; there is no trust powerful enough in the world to-day to ignore the danger and the risk of able and new competition in all parts of the world.
Any business or industry to-day which neglects scientific progress, and which neglects sound methods—I do not care how large its capital or what its combinations are—in 20 years' time will be out of business as certain as I am speaking in this House to-day. The pace is too keen; competition is too swift. Nobody can afford to sit idly by, and draw dividends out of labour. The idea that you can make money out of labour is one of the greatest fallacies in the minds of a certain number of economists. Why does anybody want a capitalist? The capitalist system, as the hon. Member said, was not created with the beginning of the world. People pay for capital because it is required. Nobody takes the risk of investing capital unless he sees some reward. The hon. Member knows that as well as I do, and he ought to state it frankly. If I have to pay 10 per cent. for capital, it means I have a risky proposition. If I have to pay 2½ per cent. it means I have a safe proposition. The industrial capitalists are the people, the only people in this country, who, instead of putting money into their pocket, instead of spending it, or doing nothing with it, instead of investing their money in luxury, are investing it ill industry, and making either loss or profit out of it. Why should they be singled out as being responsible for all the social ills that have come down to us through the centuries? It is most unfair and unreasonable. If these people did not go in for private enterprise, would there be no unemployment? I say there would be more. The people of this country are not so foolish as to deny private enterprise the fruits of its labour. The hon. Member who seconded the Resolution postulated that socialism meant the end of all international capital. How does he think trade comes to this country, if you do not export capital?

Mr. JOHNSTON: I said that capital was exported for investment abroad. The question of the international exchange of commodities is obviously a different thing altogether.

Sir A MOND: Does the hon. Member not know that capital is a commodity and can only be paid for in commodities, and that for every pound of capital you invest abroad, you have to send some commodity? I wonder what he thinks
capital is? Let me contrast that with what the hon. Member for Colne Valley said. He said he was to compensate the owners of private capital. He said he was to give the owners of industrial capital some form of State security, but he would not allow them to use it to develop industry in this country. Therefore the owners of that capital would have to take it abroad. The hon. Member said he would pay me a few thousand pounds for what I have, but he would not allow me to use it in industry here. Obviously I must take it to some country where I can use it. What advantage that is going to do to the British working man passes my comprehension. I can understand confiscation, but I cannot understand what benefit they are to gain under the scheme propounded by the hon. Member for Colne Valley. If he gives me gilt-edged securities, and I cannot use my capital in this country, I fail to see how the country and the working men would be better off.
The hon. Member who seconded the Motion said we could not distribute. I wonder who he means by "we." The best brains in the country are meantime engaged upon it. He does not tell us where abler brains are to be found. He did not tell us how transport and distribution is to be improved by calling it democratic or socialistic or anything else. You ask any man who is engaged in industrial concerns in this or any other country, and you find he is ready to pay almost any salary to anyone who is efficient, and we have to struggle along as best we can with our limitations. If hon. Members say the coalmining industry is badly organised, possibly it is, but where have you the men who can organise it better? It is not the gentlemen who write articles in the "Statist" or any other newspaper. People who have never managed any enterprise themselves are the most facile critics of other people. It is easy to sit down, and write down on a piece of paper and be colossally efficient. [HON. MEMBERS: "What about the co-operative societies?"] The co-operative societies are one of the finest capitalist schemes in the world. A co-operative society is a huge capitalist system, owned by a large number of small capitalists. Hon. Members talk as if our big industries to-day were owned by handfuls of rich people. That is not
the case. They are owned by tens of thousands of people, most of whom have very small amounts invested in them. When you talk about private capital, you do not talk about the few rich people. They do not much matter any way. They can go, and make money anywhere else. Although you can nationalise capital, you cannot nationalise ability.

Mr. McENTEE: You can buy it, and that is what you are doing.

Sir A. MOND: Hon. Members must get their minds clear. If they carried their proposals, they would abolish the co-operative societies. The Wholesale Co-operative Society is one of the biggest distributors in the world, and they are just as much privately managed as Selfridge's Store.

Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER: I really must protest against this.

Mr. SPEAKER: There will be plenty of time to reply to this speech, and I must ask the hon. Member to restrain himself.
Sir A. MOND: There is another point which I think is admitted by all Socialist writers. Socialism implies two necessary corollaries. One is that every consumer must consume a State-made article whether he likes it or not, because there will be nothing else to be got. Hon. Members will have to take a State-produced newspaper, because it is the only one that will be available. There will be no freedom of the Press. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] Of course, if freedom of the Press means nothing to hon. Members on the Labour benches, I have nothing more to say. Again, hon. Members' wives will have to take the State pattern, and dress after the State fashion. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] It will be so. Perhaps hon. Members will not object very much to it, but I should like the opinion on the subject of the wives of hon. Members. We have now got a larger number of women electors, and I will put it to the Socialist Members if the State can produce all commodities, obviously it will produce all the dresses in the country. You cannot get away from that, and we shall have to dress as the State tailor or as the State dressmaker directs. There will be no competition. Hon. Members perhaps may not be aware that in France tobacco is a State monopoly, and it is
worse than you get anywhere else. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about the matches?"] The matches will not light, and all the eloquence of hon. Members will never get them to light a pipe for anybody.
But let us look at the thing in a more serious aspect. If, under a State system, you have no freedom in the State, obviously there must be conscription of labour, and that carries with it limitation of population.

Mr. W. THORNE: Rubbish!

Sir A. MOND: Certainly. Have you thought it out?

Mr. THORNE: Yes, I have thought it out. You are doing it now—many of your class; but you cannot suppress human nature.

Sir A. MOND: As the hon. Member says, you cannot suppress human nature, and that is why Socialism must end in failure. It is up against the elementary instincts of human nature, the free, play of competition, freedom of the individual to develop if he wants to, without repression. The hon. Member for West Ham (Mr. W. Thorne) is quite right, and nobody will fight more bitterly than hon. Members on the Labour Benches for some of these things from the first day the Socaliet machine is instituted. I remember perfectly well a Debate on this point at the time the National Health Insurance Act was before the House. The hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald) made a great speech against the panel system, and denounced the idea that British citizens should not have the right to go to any doctor they liked. And this was State doctoring. Yet you are going to socialise the whole world and everything. It is impossible. The whole thing is a delusion. Your ideal is to improve the world—so is ours! Your ideal is to give the people better conditions and better houses—so is ours! Your ideal is to make the conditions of life more humane—so is ours! It is one ideal. We do not differ in ideals, though we differ as to methods. If those methods can be improved—and they can be improved— we shall certainly join hands.
The hon. Member quite rightly said that it was "uncontrolled industrialism" —I do not use the word "capitalism," because it is not the right word—it was uncontrolled industrialism which in the
early Victorian era produced a capitalist anarchy, an inhuman anarchy. It had to be controlled by the State, and I quite agree that it may have to be controlled further. What the hon. Member has achieved in his 30 years of effort is not a small matter, although I do not agree with his economic theories any more than I did 30 years ago. I do not think that they would carry out what he wishes; but he has certainly helped to quicken our human conscience. The hon. Member takes a gloomy view of the world, but let him look back a century, and ask himself what are the conditions under which people live to-day, and what were the conditions under which they lived then. [An HON. MEMBER: "They are worse to-day."] No, they are not. Look at what has been done even during the last 20 years. Was there a hundred years ago a single sanatorium in this country for persons suffering from tubercular disease? [An HON. MEMBER: "There was no need for it."] Yes, there was. I have been Minister of Health, and I can say with authority that the improvement in the health of the people, has been continuous, and is growing day by day.

Mr. J. JONES: By collective enterprise.

Sir A. MOND: Of course, national life is a collective enterprise, and I want to see it developed. But it is a different thing to say that the export and import trade in cotton, coal, wool, and so. on, is a collective enterprise, and can be managed as well nationally as individually. How can a Government deal with export trade? It is a very difficult problem. We know that in the ease of international contracts, which are not a question of private enterprise but of high State enterprise, diplomatic Notes have to pass, and whenever a contract is altered, questions are put in this House and feelings are aroused. The idea that one is considering in this system is one which has never yet been found adumbrated in any work that I have read, and I think I have read every one, from Karl Marx downwards, on this subject.
The hon. Member has raised a large fundamental issue, and it is a challenge that we gladly accept. We arc not frightened or alarmed by his indictment. We know the imperfections, and have made speeches like his ourselves. We know the
imperfections of the system under which we work, and we also know its advantages. It is not enough for him and other hon. Members to wax eloquent on the sore spots of our civilisation—a civilisation which has existed in this country now for many hundred years. What they have to prove is that they have something very much better, and that they can deliver the goods. You cannot ask an ancient nation, which has grown up on the basis of individual enterprise, of freedom of capacity for self-development, a nation which is the most individualistic nation in the world—it is more difficult to get our people to co-operate than any others in the world—where every man is proud and glad to strive, whether in the field of business, in the field of politics, or in the field of sport—you cannot ask these people to put their heads under a yoke, to go into a state of slavery—for socialism to my mind is no better—and lead a dull, monotonous existence in which there is no sparkle and no life. That is what we are being invited to do. Show us, at any rate, what we are going to be given in return for this sacrifice before we surrender our liberties so hardly won to a tyranny no better than any tyranny we have passed through in the past. Show us, at any rate, that happiness will be greater. I say you cannot do it. I say it cannot be done, and I invite you to abandon an illusion that is stopping fruitful progress.
This discussion has now been proceeding for 50 years. Wherever this policy has been adopted, it has been abandoned again. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where?"] After the French Revolution, you had socialism. In China you had socialism for 150 years. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] Does the hon. Member know anything about the history of China? Has he ever studied the extraordinary socialistic experiment made many centuries ago? I do not suppose he ever heard of it. He had better study the question before he interrupts me. I have studied it. Apparently he has not. Let us give up chasing this will o' the wisp. The word "gradual" which the hon. Member cleverly introduced will not delude us. "Gradual" sounds very pacifying. The hon. Member made a speech of a pacifying character. He knows as well as I do that at the last election nothing was resented more by most Labour candidates than to be
accused of being not Labour but Socialist. Hon. Members did not say it was a Socialist party.

Mr. LAWSON: We did.

Lieut. - Colonel WATTS - MORGAN: Name a single place.

Mr. SPEAKER: I must ask hon. Members to allow the right hon. Baronet to continue.

Sir A. MOND: I know of my own knowledge in my own constituency and other constituencies around. [HON. MEMBERS: "Name them!"] I will take my own constituency and others around me. The hon. Member knows the constituencies around mine as well as I do. I have said the Labour party had no right to be called a Labour party. They were a Socialist party. That was always repudiated. [Interruption.] The hon. Member at the next Election can call himself a Socialist candidate. [Interruption.] I am stating what is common knowledge. Hon. Members are not called a Socialist party. They are called a Labour party. [HON. MEMBERS: "We are the Labour party. It is the same thing!"] It is not the same thing. The hon. Member for Colne Valley knows it perfectly well, and so do other hon. Members, or they would not get so excited.
I am extremely glad the mask is off at last. It is a clean issue between Individualism and Socialism, a clean issue of private ownership against national ownership, a clean issue as to the right of the individual to the reward of his labour and his enterprise. I understand now there is no doubt that this Motion will go to division. [An HON. MEMBER: "We are not afraid of it!"] Neither are we, if there is only time enough to debate it. We welcome a division on all sides. We have a clean issue, and I invite all those who believe in the future order of this country, all those who believe in the freedom of people to develop along their own lines and in their own way, I invite all who do not wish to see us reduced into a machine-made product, and to a dead level of mediocrity; I invite all who do not wish to see the future progress of this country arrested, but who wish to see co-operation between labour and capital, co-operation and partnership between those who produce, and not between people who do
not care, and who do not know anything about industry, to support my Amendment. That is the programme to which I invite their support. I hope that, when the division comes, there will be even some hon. Members on the benches above the Gangway on this side of the House who will reconsider their position. [Interruption.] I am speaking in all seriousness. There are friends of mine on those benches who are no more Socialists than I am, who are no more believers in Socialism than I am, and I invite them to think twice or three times before they commit themselves to a policy which is as fatal to the best interests of the class which they represent as it is to the interests of the community as a whole.

The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Sir Philip Lloyd-Greame): The hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden) in a speech of great interest and great moderation informed us as to the effect of the Resolution which stands in his name. That Resolution raises in a perfectly plain way the whole economic issue as between Socialism and private enterprise. That is an issue which we shall be glad to meet in this House or on any platform on which the hon. Member likes to raise it. His proposal is impossible on two grounds. First of all, on economic grounds and, secondly, on psychological grounds. The hon. Member has put to the House this proposition: Has the capitalist system given us a good world? That is not the issue which he is entitled to put to the House. In order to persuade us to vote for this Motion, he has to convince the House and the country on this point, whether the system which he proposes will give a better world than the capitalist system has given. In making such a proposition he has to have regard to the peculiar situation in which this country finds itself.
The industrial situation in Great Britain is unique. It is a vast industrial community drawing from resources overseas a large part of its food and of its raw material, and paying for that food and raw material in one way only. That is by selling its products in competing markets throughout the world, the sale of which it has to make in face of the keenest competition in every market, and which can only be made effectively if the industry of this country is conducted on a scientific
basis with the most economical methods of production possible and the most efficient methods of sale. Unless you have got those conditions it is impossible for the workers to maintain a decent standard of life. State control, which in one form or another—and I am not very sure as to what is the precise form the hon. Member advocates—in every ease is unimaginative, inelastic, and absolutely checks all initiative, and, above all, under State control you get utter inability to take those risks which are the whole essence of successful trading and successful business. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] Because nobody in a great State machine could ever have the courage to take a risk which involves a loss, and that is why it never works. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?" and "What about the War?"] Those are the qualities, initiative, enterprise, imagination, with willingness to take risks, which are absolutely vital if you are to win back world trade and to hold it.
The foreign trade which this country does depends absolutely on sheer efficient production, skill in buying your raw materials, skill in manufacturing, skill in selling, skill in finance, skill in the whole machinery of credit. That can only be got by the enterprise, initiative and experience of every class of person who for generations has been engaged in business of this kind. Take credit alone. The chance of whether you win a profit or have a loss on a financial transaction depends upon the knowledge of the credit of your customer, a knowledge which you only get through years of experience, as this country has got it. Another thing, if you are to get progressively the most effective and the cheapest production, you must be prepared to take advantage of every new invention that comes forward, and you must have the opportunity to get every invention. Are you likely to get that under a Socialist system? The hon. Member, in a rather delightful passage in his speech, referred to the inventions of value which had taken place when we were in a state of tribal communism. There may have been some primitive inventiveness in those days, but I challenge the hon. Member—and I think he will agree with me—as to where invention in these days is most likely to come. Is it likely to come to the Socialist State or is the inventor with
his genius likely to go to the country which will give him the best opportunities and price for his invention, to the country which will take the greatest risks in order to see that the invention is a success?
With this dead level of State control, you are bound to get a greater cost of production and greater inefficiency, and you are less able, therefore, to sell in the competing markets of the world. That means that there is less to go into the common pool, and it is only out of the common pool that you can divide the proceeds, whether as interest on capital or as the wages that labour is to receive. Socialism, in whatever guise you dress it, may be a very effective way of making rich men poorer, but it is a singularly ineffective way of making poor men richer. The matter does not end there. As I have said, in this country we pay for what we import for the needs of our industry and life by our foreign sales; but we never make enough money out of our foreign sales to pay for the whole of those imports. How are they paid for? They are paid for entirely by what are known as our invisible exports, by the very interest on those foreign investments which were challenged by the hon. Member who seconded the Motion. Something like £100,000,000 a year is the return on the foreign investments of this country. If capital did not exist, if capital had not been saved, if capital had not been invested in different countries overseas, you would be £100,000,000 short to-day of the money which is necessary to pay for the bread that we eat and the raw material of every industry. You get these imports paid for by shipping, and, as to tens of millions of pounds, by finance, banking, insurance, and a hundred and one services which arc rendered by this country to other countries, for which other countries pay, and which we use to pay for the imports which we must have. Why does that business come here? It comes here partly because we have great experience. Other countries have experience and are anxious to do the business, but from generation to generation it has come to this country because people in foreign countries regard England as safe, regard capital which is invested here as safe, and business done here as secure. Give one shock to that security, destroy capital and the capi-
talist system, and very little will be needed to send the whole of that business, worth tens of millions of pounds, away from this country to other countries which try less fantastic experiments. It will then be a poor consolation to us, if we find that we have not the wherewithal to pay for food and raw material, to say that we have made a mistake in our economics.
So much for the economic fallacy of the Motion. The psychological fallacy is, I think, equally great. We are asked to assume that every man or woman who works for the State, as distinct from working for private enterprise, is filled with a sense of well-being which is going to lead to more efficient work. I cannot quite follow that process of thought. Apparently, what is to happen is that the industries of this country are to be nationalised. The hon. Member rejected the idea of confiscation and very rightly, but be said that we must nationalise these industries one by one. What does that mean? It means, presumably, that where men to-day arc shareholders in a company, they will become shareholders in some form of Government stock and the workman who is working for a limited liability company, the profits of which go to the shareholders, will merely be in this different position, that the profits— if there be profits, and profits are much less likely to result—will go to pay some form of Government stock to which the former shareholders of the company are entitled. It requires a very fine conscience to recognise the moral difference between these two forms of labour. Is not the whole position, as presented to us, utterly and hopelessly unreal? In fact to-day you have a large number of men and women who are working for the State or for municipal enterprises as well as for private enterprise. Can it be said, with any shadow of truth that any one of these people feels that because he or she is working for a municipality or a Government Department, therefore he or she is animated by a feeling which gives greater joy in work or greater efficiency?

Mr. MAXTON: Yes, you feel it.

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: Is it really suggested, for instance, that a girl in a telephone exchange—

Mr. MAXTON: I am suggesting that you feel it

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: The hon. Member will have an opportunity. Is it suggested, I ask, that a girl in a telephone exchange, the moment she ceased to work for the National Telephone Company, felt a moral uplift because she was working for the Postmaster-General? That kind of thing bears absolutely no relation to the facts. There is one difference, and one difference which is all to the bad. I do not believe that a workman working for the State is likely to be more willing and more anxious to work—we all work according to our capacity—than he is when working for a private employer. But there is this difference. The moment you nationalise industry you get direct employment of a large number of people by the State, and you get pressure by those persons upon the State as their employer, and that is the worst possible condition into which a country can get You have the State, put in the position of a direct employer of labour, instead of being in a position it should be in, as a general arbitrator and general guardian of the interests of the community. The whole policy of Socialism is utterly contrary to the instinct and the general sense of the British people.
What is the thing you work for? At any time and on any platform I am perfectly willing that this should be made an issue, and put fairly and squarely to the people. What is the thing you work for? Is it for socialism or for the State; or for yourselves, for your family, and for your individual interests? That is a natural instinct of people; it is a right instinct of people. It is the basis on which industry has been built up, and on which initiative and enterprise have been developed.

Mr. ROBERT MURRAY: We are not allowed to work for ourselves. You work for yourself.

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: It is the basis of national and family life, and it has made more for the greatness of the country than any socialism we have ever seen. Hon. Members opposite always resent any allusion to Russia in relation to this—[HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] They misunderstand the criticism which is directed to their policy. It is not that hon. Members on this side of the House believe that this country is ever likely, or that they arc likely to go in for the
sanguinary forms of revolution which took place in Russia. The criticism which we apply to the policy of hon. Members opposite is that, in Russia, economically and psychologically, that policy has been a complete failure. If it could have succeeded at all, it ought to have succeeded there. The hon. Member who moved this Motion proposed nationalisation with full compensation, or, at any rate, with some measure of compensation. That puts a capital charge on the industry. In Russia there was no such liability. The Communist started with the industry as a free gift, with no capital liabilities to take over, and with all the assets, to run, if he could. What has been the result? Absolute economic disaster in every industry in the country, in every means of transportation in the country, in every means of distribution in the country, and an absolute cessation of any known means of credit or of exchange.

Mr. MAXTON: Is that quite true?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: Absolutely true. So true is it that the people of Russia themselves are now, by one means and another, seeking in every way in their power to escape from that tyrannous and hopeless form of State control. As recently as 22nd December there was a Soviet of the People's Economy, and it passed a resolution to be submitted to the People's Commissaries —
That all nationalised industrial enterprise should be denationalised and returned, on a rent basis,"—
that terrible thing—
or by way of concession, either to the former owners or to foreign applicants.
They asked for it in order to put an end to the entire lack of turnover on capital and the entire lack of credit. That is the opinion of these people of the experiment that has been tried. In the greatest of all Russian industries the failure has been the most fantastic of all. After all, 90 per cent.—I suppose 95 per cent.—of the people of Russia are on the land. The great thing to do was to communise, to nationalise the land. What has been the result? It is quite true they have turned the former owners out, but by doing that they have established on the land a class of peasant ownership which is the most Conservative set of' capitalists which
exist in the whole world to-day. The Communist Government dare not take one ell of that land from the people who are the present proprietors, and they are nor. even overtaxed. It may be a process of revolution, but the result which has been obtained is anything but Socialism; it is the most extreme form of capitalism that has ever been seen.

Mr. MAXTON: Why do you not defend it? It is your life.

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: The hon. Member asks why we do not adopt it. I do not think it would be very good for the security of this country, but that may be one policy, the policy of substituting a peasant proprietorship for any other form of land tenure, but whatever that system is, it is not Socialism, it is not national control. The more capitalists there are, whether on the land or in industry, the. better we shall be pleased, and the more capitalists there are, in either the one or the other, the more certain it is that the capitalist system would be firmly established and the system advocated by the hon. Members opposite would find less and less support. No one in this country, I think, believes that we are likely to be overturned by any form of violent revolution: but a great industrial country like this may as easily be ruined by false economies as by any form of extreme revolution, and it is because instinct and experience have convinced us that the plan which the hon. Member proposes, the plan of nationalisation, with its cumbrous machinery of State control, is disastrous to the whole economic life of this country, it is because we are convinced that, so far from establishing a decent standard of life by any such system, you would reduce the standard of life, you would jeopardise the very means of livelihood of a great industrial people such as ours, that we shall oppose this policy whole-heartedly, consistently, and constructively whenever and where-ever it may be put forward.

Motion made, and Question, "That the Debate be now adjourned," put, and agreed to.—[Sir J. Simon.]

Debate to be resumed To-morrow.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

Orders of the Day — NOTTINGHAM LACE INDUSTRY.

Motion made, and Question proposed,

" That this House do now adjourn."— [Colonel Leslie Wilson.]

Captain BERKELEY: I rise to ask for a sympathetic hearing from the House for a statement on the Nottingham lace industry to-day. It is a very difficult and complicated question of trade that I have to tell the House, and it makes my task the more easy to think I shall be heard and, I hope, helped, by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade who has just, if I may say so, delighted us with his constructive handling of a great economic problem. The plight of the Nottingham lace trade to-day may be estimated by a few simple figures. In 1913, at a time of normal output, the export trade amounted to £4,142,000 odd in value. In 1922, after a period of prosperity in 1919, which waxed and waned, the exports had sunk as low as just under £2,000,000, and when the alteration in the value of money is taken into account, the difference is really very striking, for in 1922 the index figure was up between 75 and 90 per cent. over the pre-War figure. and so it may be said that the value of those exports in terms of the 1913 currency was reduced to something not very far above £1,000,000.
11.0 P.M.
The exports in 1913 went principally to the United States, the British Dominions, Central Europe, including Germany, and South America. Therefore, the reasons for the falling off of the export trade in 1922 are not very hard to seek. In the case of the United States of Amerca, you had, and still have, an almost impassable tariff barrier. In Central Europe, you have a condition of almost complete inability to purchase, owing to the conditions of the currency. In the case of Germany, so I am informed, you have a tariff barrier which, if not technically an embargo, amounts in effect to an embargo, and in the case of South America you have fluctuations of currency and general financial instability to such an extent that a great amount of the stocks to that part of the world have never been sold. I have very little doubt that the representative of the Government who does me the honour to reply to these few remarks will tell me that the hope for the Nottingham lace trade lies in the revival of exports. Taking the long view, that
is probably true. I have very little doubt that the export trade is capable of revival, and that, with proper encouragement, it will certainly revive, but I will ask the Government to consider that this revival, taking into account the places in which we have to seek our markets, must necessarily be a lengthy process, and, meanwhile, if the industry is not to perish completely, we must look elsewhere to carry on.
May I briefly indicate what was, and what is, the import situation? In 1913, I think it would be correct to say, that Notting ham was not greatly concerned with the home market. I do not mean to imply that manufacturers neglected their home market—far from it—but they were working full pressure for foreign markets. Indeed, they were doing so brisk a trade that they were making lace machinery for other countries, and in the meantime the French and Germans were obtaining a considerable footing in the London market. In 1913 the imports from France were just over £1,000,000, and rather more than that amount was imported from Germany. In 1922 the imports from France came to £1,250,000, and, of course, there was practically nothing from Germany; but by 1922, owing to the collapse of the foreign markets, it had become absolutely imperative, if the Nottingham industry was to continue to prosper, or, indeed, to carry on at all, for the Nottingham manufacturers to make an effort to capture the home market. What was the situation? By 1922 the French exchange was fluctuating in the neighbourhood of 60 francs to the pound, sometimes a little higher, and sometimes a little lower. The consequence of that was that whereas British costs of production had advanced, roughly, in the proportion to the index figure of living, that is to say, had increased from 75 per cent. to 90 or 100 per cent. above pre-War costs, the French lace, owing to the depreciated currency was selling in this country at only about 16 per cent. above the pre-War selling price. The consequence obviously was, and obviously is to-day, that it was, and it is, impossible to capture for the Nottingham industry a home market in which French lace is selling at less than the cost price in London
I would like to give an illustration to show that this is no exaggeration, by quoting an advertisement that was pub-
lished in the "Observer newspaper in February of this year. It is not an isolated instance. There have been a number of these advertisements published. It is a well-known firm of merchants in London advertising a sale of laces, the stock of a Paris wholesale house, and it is said:
This remarkable purchase was effected at an average discount of 75 per cent. Owing to the sensational fall in the value of the franc, the proprietors of this Paris lace house "—
that is, the house from which this particular purchase was effected,
decided to turn their stock into cash without delay in order to avoid further depreciation. Our cash offer was accepted, and on Monday we shall place on sale the first portion of the stock.
Then we are told what the lots are to be.
Lot I is a certain kind of lace—
" To-day's Paris price, 15 to 20 francs per metre. Sale price in London per yard, 6¾d.
Lot 2 is a different kind of lace—
To-day's Paris price, 20 to 30 francs per metre. All to be sold at per yard, 1s. 3d.
So this catalogue of laces proceeds in a large number of lots, disposing in all of 150,000 metres of French lace. It must be quite clear upon that, that no lace manufactured here, with the costs that prevail in this country, could conceivably hope to compete in the London market with that.

Mr. W. GREENWOOD: May I interrupt the hon. Member to ask if we are to understand that the hon. Member is claiming for this industry some measure of protection?

Captain BERKELEY: If the hon. Member will have the courtesy and kindness to allow me to develop my argument in my own way, he will doubtless become aware, before I have finished my speech, of exactly what proposals I have to make to the Government for the recovery of this industry. That is the situation with regard to the disadvantage at which this lace stands in relation to the French-made article. That has produced some very alarming figures with regard to unemployment. According to the information I have, it is estimated that in 1913 there were something like 50,000 lace workers employed in the Nottingham industry. My informants tell me (and my informants arc reputable lace manu-
facturers in the City of Nottingham) that it is doubtful to-day if it would be possible to trace more than about 20,000 of these workers, because in these lean years a very great number: have been dissipated and have disappeared, and they tell me that of those 20,000 which it might be possible to trace, it is doubtful whether more than 10,000 are in employment. It is a very serious situation. The figures of the Minister of Labour certainly show that not more than about 2,000 of these unemployed or out-of-work lace hands are registered in the Exchanges. But I think my friends on the Treasury Bench would perhaps admit that these figures do not really give an accurate picture of the situation which seems to me—I do not want to exaggerate —to be appallingly grave. Seventy-five per cent. of the machinery in Nottingham is idle to-day and that is the reason the petition was presented this afternoon by my hon. Friend the Member for South Nottingham (Lord H. Cavendish-Bentinck) supported by my hon. Friend the Member for West Nottingham (Mr. Hayday) and myself—a petition praying for relief signed by 17,000 signatories. That petition asked that this industry should be scheduled under the Safeguarding of Industries Act. That is not an Act of which I approve, but it must be admitted that the claim is far more than a mere Protectionist move on the part of a few manufacturers. I am satisfied it is not that. It is a movement that has practically the whole of the Nottingham lace trade behind it. There was an immense meeting on 3rd February last in Nottingham attended by more than 3,000 masters and men, and you have this monster petition signed by 17,000 people.
Much as I dislike the Safeguarding of Industries Act, I must say that, if ever a trade qualified by the circumstances of unfair competition due to depreciated exchange, to ask for help, it is the lace industry of Nottingham. The situation as I understand it is that the Government has refused the application, because this is not the first occasion on which relief has been sought. Deputations have been received by the President of the Board of Trade, and, if I may say so, they were very sympathetically received by him—and I think the right hon. Gentleman will probably tell us there are a variety of reasons which impelled him to refuse this appli-
cation. One reason—which I must say seems to me a cogent reason—he gave me, by implication, in answer to a question I put to him. The Act provides that it should not be applied to a case where its application would contravene commercial treaties or understandings with other Powers, and the reply to my question— at least, I so understood it—was that there existed a tacit understanding between this country and the French which would be contravened by scheduling this industry under that particular Act.

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: I should not like the hon. and gallant Gentleman to be under any misapprehension on that point. The case was rejected entirely on its merits, because the total imports into this country, coupled with re-exports, were wholly insufficient to justify, apart from any other consideration, the case under the Act. That is set out fully in the reply.

Captain BERKELEY: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving me that information at this stage. What I would say to him and the Government is that if they can assist other industries to get on their feet again to compete against the fluctuating foreign exchanges and particularly against the severely depreciated foreign exchanges, they ought not to refuse assistance of some kind to this particular industry. The right hon. Gentleman says that he has refused this particular application because, in the view of the Department, it does not come within the four walls of the Act, and that the facts do not justify it. That may be so, but surely it is admitted that the situation in relation to unemployment is so grave and the falling away of the whole trade is such that it justifies us in going to the Government and asking for sympathy and help.

Mr. STEPHEN: Sympathy!

Captain BERKELEY: We will not refuse to welcome any scheme the Government can suggest, and even sympathy. In default of anything else I should like briefly to put to the right hon. Gentleman one or two points which I think are worthy of consideration. This country is at the present time paying a large sum of money, quite unproductive, in unemployment benefit to the lace trade. The workpeople in that trade are losing their skill, and day by day the men are becom-
ing more unlit to resume their occupation. [An HON. MEMBER: "And the women"] Yes, and the women. That money is not fructifying, not being turned into capital. I submit to the right hon. Gentleman that this money, if infused into the trade, might perhaps prove some stimulus which would enable the trade to restart—or, at any rate, would go some way towards it. It would, too, enable the industry to compete against the incoming foreign lace and would help the industry to hold on to the coming trade revival, which, we hope for, and which the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues encourage us to hope for.
I am told that if some such sum as £500,000 a year—which is not greatly in excess of the amount now paid in unemployment benefit—could be found, the lace trade could hold its own and keep all its machines working half time, and re-employ all these hands. The use of the unemployment benefit for such purposes would go a long way towards producing such a sum, and I suggest that if the Nottingham lace trade saw some such movement on the part of the Government, some gesture of help towards them. they might possibly be able to raise themselves, by loan or by private means, the necessary balance to carry out the scheme. The question is how to utilise such money, if it were available. I quite see that it would be impossible to give it to individual firms. It would be necessary to treat the industry as a whole, and my proposal would be that it might be possible to set up a Lace Control Board on the same lines as the Cotton Control Board which was set up during the War. That Board would be composed of employers, workers, and Government and, possibly, municipal representatives. It would fix the prices through the industry, because there are several processes all the way through, allowing no more than a small profit. It would arrange to cut costs to a minimum, and then it would be in a position to deal direct with the merchant houses who put the lace on the market; and, upon their producing the accounts of their losses at stated intervals, it could use that money to reimburse them for their losses in competing in the market with the lace that comes in from the Continent at this low price owing to the depreciated exchange. I realise that the Government could not pledge themselves to this scheme offhand,
but it has been discussed with the representatives of the industry, and I think that I am accurate in saying that they believe that some such scheme could be carried out if the Government would accept it. My earnest hope is that the President of the Board of Trade will be able to see his way to consider some such scheme.

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: The hon. and gallant Member has not exaggerated the unfortunate position in which this industry finds itself. It is undoubtedly extremely serious, and I believe it to be more so than is reflected in the unemployment returns, because many persons who were employed in it have gone into other industries where their skill is not utilised to the same advantage. He has also stated with considerable accuracy what is the cause. It is entirely due to the failure of this trade to export anything like the proportion of its commodities that it used to export. Before the War something like 80 per cent. of the products of this trade were always exported. That rate of export has fallen very considerably. It is true that the industry made an application under the Safeguarding of Industries Act. and I went into it with the greatest care, but it could produce no evidence that would justify me on the facts in sending it to a Committee. It was apparent that the disaster was due to the failure to export. The actual imports into this country were considerably less than before the War, and over 80 per cent. of the actual imports were being re-exported. Such a case would not be met under the Act, because, even if an Order had been made, the trade would have gained little or no benefit, and it was plain that there was no primả-facie case which would in the least justify me —I can only administer the Act strictly— in sending such a case to the Committee. It would have been a wrong action on my part, and, indeed, of thankless benefit to the lace trade, which would have been put to the expense of going to the Committee with a hopeless task in front of it. It is true that nothing except an improvement in the export trade is likely to improve the industry. Anything that the Government can do within the powers at its disposal it is
most anxious to do. I have discussed with the trade on several occasions the possibility of utilising export credits, and I have discussed with them other plans which might be adopted for promoting the sale of their commodities in different countries, and any assistance in any of these directions we can give we shall be only too glad and anxious to give.
With regard to the scheme which the hon. and gallant Gentleman has outlined, naturally he will not expect me to pronounce upon it, and as it relates to unemployment insurance, I would ask him to discuss it—if he has a scheme ready in a form in which it can be discussed— with my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour; but. I am bound to point out to him certain initial difficulties in the way of the scheme, which is attractive at first blush. In the first place, it is no good going into a scheme of this kind, unless the money which could be raised would be sufficient to meet the difference in price, unless there would be an organisation which would be competent to do this job, and unless the whole trade would be ready to consent to it. Even if these conditions were fulfilled I am bound to point out these further difficulties. In the first place, such a scheme would require legislation. There is no power at the Ministry of Labour to do this under the Insurance Act. Secondly, although I cannot now elaborate this, the hon. and gallant Gentleman is aware that the Government recently went very closely and sympathetically—because they wished to do this thing if it were possible—into the whole question whether it would be possible to use any part of the Unemployment Insurance Fund for this purpose. We published the result of our deliberations in that matter, and I think the hon. and gallant Gentleman is familiar with them. There are, apart from the statutory difficulties, a great many further practical difficulties in the way. Even in spite of that, I am so anxious that no stone should be left unturned which can in any way assist this industry, that I am sure my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour will be very glad, if a scheme is in a state in which it can be discussed, to go into it with a desire, if it is at all possible, to do anything by that means, or some other that may be suggested, to help the industry.

Mr. W. GREENWOOD: Does not the right, hon. Gentleman think that the position is not only very serious for Nottingham but is also reflected in the cotton spinning trade of Lancashire, and that it justifies strong representations being made to the United States that they ought not to put up such severe tariffs against our goods as will prevent us in a great measure, and in a reasonable way. from meeting our engagements with them?

Mr. SPEAKER has, in pursuance of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House), nominated Sir George Croydon Marks (in the room of Lieut. Colonel the right hon. Sir John Gilmour, Bt.) to act during this Session as a temporary Chairman of Committees when requested by the Chairman of Ways and Means.

Mr. REMER: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that the real remedy is to adopt a general tariff which would enable manufactured goods to be prevented from being dumped here?

It being Half-past Eleven of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Half after Eleven o'Clock.